The Mark of the Heart
by Lore Eater
Summary: Long have powerful beings sought to take the throne to Kingdom Hearts. Over the centuries, the only one to have come close has been Xehanort. His last attempt was thwarted, but in an unexpected way. After all, how can one sit upon a throne that is already occupied? Kings are not often born, but they can be made. A new king will be chosen. He will be made ready.
1. Chapter 1 - Divine Intervention

**A/N: Well, this is it. Here we are, doing something that excites and scares the shit out of me. This is the first story that I have felt comfortable posting. There are several others that will probably not see the light of day—unless they are heavily revised—but for now this will do. Hopefully my writing skill is up to snuff. I've tried to keep my spelling and grammar consistent, but I'm only human.**

 **Or at least I was the last time I checked...**

 ***Jumps down a flight of stairs***

 **Okay... can't fly. Or heal like wolverine. :(**

 **Oh well.**

 **If you see any errors, hard to understand passages, or have suggestions to help my writing ability grow, please read and review.**

 **Oh!**

 **Can't have people suing me.**

 **Disclaimer:**

 **I don't own anything involved with Kingdom Hearts or its associated properties. That honor belongs to Square Enix and their talented (if a little time confused) writers. And of course Disney. Have to mention the mouse.**

* * *

Prologue - Divine Intervention

High up atop the stone pillar in the middle of the Keyblade Graveyard, Sora faced down Master Xehanort as they waited for the last few battles happening around them to finish; neither one moving. Like stone guardians, each waited for an opportunity to take the other out—only looking away when they felt or heard signs of a possible end to their temporary stalemate. The former graveyard was littered with the dead, the dying, the injured and the still fighting. The fighters were composed of numerous Heartless, Nobodies and Unversed on one side, and a plethora of different peoples from a multitude of places throughout the seperated realms on the other. Today, all of them were united in a common cause; Defeat the thirteen incarnations of Xehanort and prevent them from opening Kingdom Hearts.

Several of the newly reformed Organization XIII's unknown members were laying about the graveyard-turned-battlefield, killed by either heroes of light or—in one particular case—struck down by Master Xehanort's own hand. Several of the better known members had fallen as well. There was Xigbar and Saix, both felled by Lea—or Axel as most people still called him, much to his chagrin. Riku—who incidentally called Lea by his nobody's name the most—was responsible for Vanitas' twisted corpse. A result of Vanitas killing Lea in a sneak attack after his battle with Saix.

Riku hadn't escaped the fight unscathed, as he was blinded by a whip of pure darkness. He was only spared death and given the opportunity to win the fight because Ventus intercepted the killing blow, getting stabbed through the abdomen in the process. Riku had used this opening to lop Vanitas's head from his shoulders with The Way to the Dawn. At that point, King Mickey had been facing off with Xehanort's Heartless; Ansem. Mickey was jumping, dodging and sliding all around the massive golem summoned by Ansem—each move trailing a flurry of slashes and hits woven together in a river of carnage. Riku left Ventus to rest and, after tearing a strip from his shirt and tying it around his eyes, ran to assist the King.

* * *

From up on top of the rock pillar, Sora and Master Xehanort watched as the armies of battling forces created several voids of space around some of the more intense fights to avoid getting caught up in them. Occasionally, as had already happened a few times now, the voids would fill back in to signify the end of a fight. They watched as one such void began collapsing where Vanitas had been fought by Riku and Ventus. They watched as the head of silver hair that was the darker keyblade bearer took off like a shot toward one of the two voids left in the fray.

* * *

While Mickey was distracted with the golem, Ansem was busy charging up a massive spell between his two outstretched hands. It was big semi-visible black sphere that had darkness leaking from it and red lightning crackling in the air around it. The golem finally slammed a fist into Mickey, hitting him for the first time in the fight, while he was mid-flip overhead. As the warrior king skipped away on the ground, Ansem fired his spell. It rocketed forward, carving a trench through the ground and sending keyblades flying away when they weren't consumed in the spell. Mickey looked up just in time to see Riku, eyes bloody and bandaged, standing over him and casting Reflect.

The spell rebounded away from the duo and hit the shadowy golem, reducing it and its surroundings to a crater. Ansem's eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"Why do you resist so readily?" He asked, arms fanned out to either side. "Wouldn't it be better to start over? To remake the world, whole and anew?"

Riku swiped his hand through the air in front of himself. "A new world… Begin anew… yeah right! What better way to begin anew than to build a world around yourself? Especially when you get to be the new 'god' of that world?!" He shook his head disgustedly.

Mickey stood upright and brandished his gold and silver keyblade. "That's right. A world created to suit the purposes of one at the cost of many is nothing more than an illusion meant to control the lives of others." He moved to Riku's side and they each settled into a fighting stance, keyblades angled towards Asnem.

Ansem shook his head slowly, as though he were truly sad that they would not submit. In his hand a beam of pure darkness took the shape of a blade. The three stood stock still for a moment before launching themselves at each other. Riku and Ansem smashed their blades together, deflecting and redirecting blows and trying to get inside the other's guard. While this was happening, Mickey jumped into a somersault over the two fighters to attack Ansem's flank.

Noting the move, Ansem crashed his blade of darkness against Riku's keyblade sending the silver haired youth flying. Mickey made a diagonal slash at Ansem, but missed due to Ansem jumping into the air and taking flight. Mickey didn't know he was in danger before his body was already dodging. The ground where he had been standing erupted in a geyser of darkness. The technique did not stop there, however, forcing the small King to be on the defensive while he evaded.

Riku, having recovered from the hit he took, gathered up several of the keyblades from the ground and suspended them in the air around him using his Aeroga spell. The results were spectacular as several dozen keyblades began spinning around the battlefield, a few of them even destroying some of the lesser heartless that had gotten too close to the battle—drawn in by the strength of his and the King's hearts, no doubt. Riku shot through the air towards Ansem and swiped one of his arms in front of himself, and consequently a few dozen keyblades followed the motion like an extension of his arm.

Ansem—heavily focused on tracking Mickey with his darkness geysers—took the brunt of the attack and was knocked sideways, end over end, across the graveyard and into the side of the stone pillar. The ground between them was littered with mangled Shadows, Dusks and a few Floods surrounding the gouges in the landscape where Ansem had skipped off the ground. The base of the pillar where he struck was a plume of smoke and debris, leaving the King and Riku unsure if the fight was over.

Unfortunately, they found out that it wasn't.

A whip of darkness lashed out, severing Mickey's right arm, making him shout in pain and drop his keyblade momentarily. Then a large beam of darkness punted Riku in the chest and into his own personal divot. Ansem stepped out of the plume of smoke, his body was covered in blood and his clothes were shredded all over, except for where they were just gone. Evidently he had lost an arm and leg, because the cloth covering them was gone and in each place was a clean limb.

Mickey looked up from where he had collapsed, still clutching his stump arm. This was not going to be a pretty fight.

By this point, Ansem was spewing some nonsense about fate that he wasn't listening to. Instead, he was waiting. Waiting… There! The king cast a low powered ice spell to freeze his stump closed temporarily, then he summoned his keyblade in his left hand. Riku's keyblade tore through Ansem's back just a second before Mickey's pierced him from the front, but both blades found their way to Ansem's heart. As the body faded, they sat down side by side and admired their handiwork.

"Well, at least we paid him back for trapping us in the realm of darkness, huh?" Riku asked the King.

Mickey gave a half shrug "Too bad we can't add interest this way." he chuckled grimly.

* * *

Master Xehanort felt his heartless fade and his eyebrow twitched. "Three left." He heard Sora say offhandedly, to which he responded just as casually "Unfortunate, but expected losses are expected losses."

"Rationalizing now?"

"Hardly."

Master Xehanort let out a humph and Sora allowed himself a smug grin.

* * *

On the other side of the pillar, things were not going so well. Kairi and Aqua were facing off against the younger Xehanort and Xemnas respectively. Aqua, being a veteran keyblade master and an exceptionally powerful mage, was quite capable of holding her own against Xemnas. Kairi however, having only just completed her training under Yen Sid before the magus' death, was having a rough go of it. Every time she finally scored a few hits, Xehanort would just reverse the damage with his time abilities. Her every spell was held in stasis until their small chunk of battleground was a minefield of floating elemental spells. Even worse was the speed at which he could attack when he got a minute to do so. It was all she could do to keep him busy so he couldn't attack at all.

Eventually over the course of the fight, she became desperate to land a fatal blow and end it. She couldn't do prolonged battle like this yet. The battle had been raging for hours before she had even got into this fight; she had gone into it half drained. She knew her limits. She wasn't a stamina freak like Sora or Riku. Unfortunately knowing her limits did nothing to prevent her from reaching them. When it happened, it was slow and inevitable. Her mistake—the last she would make—would be to throw her keyblade at Xehanort as a distraction and flash behind him to deliver a powerful Firaga spell.

A spell which was ended before the words ever left her lips.

She looked down to see her own weapon speared through her heart. This, in itself wasn't frightening or even painful as her own keyblade could never hurt her; it simply surprised her. But the real damage was already done. Her hesitation was long enough for Xehanort to ram his straightened fingers through her throat and out the other side. She fell to the ground, choking on blood and spittle.

Aqua, temporarily at a standstill in her battle, watched as Kairi fell to the ground and flew into a rage. In her righteous fury, Aqua punted an off guard Xemnas into the sky and took off towards Xehanort with her face contorted in rage. She was going so fast that she was a blue and black blur on the landscape, her position only given away by the whirlwind of enemies she sent flying in her wake. Xehanort was dead before his head ever hit the ground. Aqua, having used the last of her mana on that attack, slumped to the ground and carefully cradled Kairi's body in her lap.

Just then Xemnas came flying back down to the ground—under his own power, of course—and landed right in front of the two girls.

"It seems your light… was not eternal." he said, a smirk working its way across his face.

He raised his beam saber, Interdiction, and made to strike down Aqua. He managed to take one step forward before a keyblade burst from his chest and shined with a light so intense, it left Aqua blind for a moment. When her vision finally cleared, she saw a heavily wounded and weakened Ventus propping himself up using a random keyblade he took from the graveyard when he had begun hobbling his way over to them.

"Sorry… I was too late this time…" he said before collapsing.

It was then that Aqua noticed something else.

Ventus's keyblade was nowhere to be found. It was gone. Just like Xemnas. Ventus had done the same thing she had done once upon a time; he had given up his keyblade.

She cried. Silently at first for what he had sacrificed—what they all had sacrificed. Then loudly for the people they had all lost.

* * *

Sora hadn't waited a second longer. He sprung, keyblade in hand, towards the last and eldest Xehanort. So fast was his reaction that, briefly, Xehanort was weaponless until the very last moment when he raised both of his hands and summoned his keyblade into them in a defensive position across his body.

When their weapons clashed, a flair of light pulsed outward from the point of contact. Then they disappeared. To the average person, it appeared as though a white fireworks display was happening atop the tower. That is, until the top of the tower began vaporizing itself.

Occasionally the fight would be punctuated with pauses, during which both of the keyblade masters would fling an arsenal of spells at each other. The worst part was that with every salvo they fired, a good portion of the enemy army was caught in the crossfire.

Then came the clash.

They met just above the disintegrating stone pillar, keyblades sparking against one another until a backlash of power shattered Sora's keyblade. The pieces exploded away from the force of the clash, some burying themselves into Sora's skin before he could manage a Reflect.

Master Xehanort smirked down at Sora and his shattered kingdom key. "Light, it will betray you in the end." His hand shot up to the sky. "Kingdom hearts! Come to me!"

The clouds in the sky suddenly rushed apart in a perfect circle, revealing a heart shaped moon that was light on the edges and a void of darkness in the center. Everyone who caught a glimpse of the sky suddenly stopped fighting, causing their peers who had not noticed to do the same.

Donald and Goofy, who had been fighting alongside the members of the old Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee, gasped. They had now witnessed the summoning of kingdom hearts several times, and they knew that the only reason it could be in the sky would be if they had lost.

Leon was kneeled down with his blade shoved into the earth next to him, a grimace plainly on his face as he watched Kingdom Hearts appear.

Yuffie saw Kingdom Hearts appear out of the corner of her eye, but kept up the fight while the enemy hoards were distracted by throwing shuriken and kunai even as she slashed with her knives.

Tifa and Cloud simply stood in mute fascination as the most dangerous thing they had seen—at least since since Sephiroth had cast Meteor—appeared in the sky like a wraith in the fog.

Mickey and Riku—who had been using mana to see—watched in despair as the massive object of strife and conflict hovered above in the darkened sky.

Aqua and Ventus felt like the ground beneath their feet had just crumbled away. After everything they had done. All the battles. The dead friends. The hardship. Everything they had stood for. It didn't matter in the end.

They had lost.

* * *

That was a feeling that was shared by Sora as he kneeled on top of the half banished pillar. He watched as Xehanort became wreathed in darkness with crackles of light coming off here and there.

"Yes! Behold the power of Kingdom Hearts!" Xehanort shouted, a smile on his face and a demented gleam in his eyes.

He held out his keyblade, as if expecting something to happen, but nothing did. Meanwhile, Sora was trying to process what had happened.

Where did he go wrong? Could he have done anything to prevent this? No. What happened had happened because he did the best he could with the information he had.

The only thing he could do at this point was to go down fighting. His eyes hardened. He intended to.

Shakily he got to his feet. It was made more difficult due to his weakness caused by the shattering of his keyblade, but he grit his teeth and worked through it.

Xehanort turned his attention away from the Keyblade in his hand—he would figure out why it had not changed later—and watched as Sora stood. He thought it precious that the boy still thought he could do anything at this point.

Sora took a step forward before catching a fist in his face with a nasty crunch. He heard himself hit the ground, but it didn't register over the pain of his newly broken nose. Then it hit him.

Broken. Nose.

Xehanort had punched him. He hadn't used his keyblade, he had simply punched him. Was he that weak? Sora shook his head to clear away the thought. It did not matter.

He stood again. And this time, he was kicked in the chest.

He stood again and was smashed in the side of the head.

Again. And again. He would not stop.

Xehanort kept knocking him down but every time, regardless of injury, he stood again. The next time he kicked Sora it was in the knee, breaking his leg and bending it backward. And yet, he straightened it out and began to stand yet again.

Unbeknownst to the two on the pillar everyone else was watching as something Amazing happened. Kingdom Hearts was slowly turning white from the inside every time Sora was knocked down and it shone brighter still every time he picked himself up.

This cycle continued until Sora was little better than a standing corpse.

"WHY. WON'T. YOU. DIE!" Screamed a raging Xehanort. "You think you can do anything!? Why do you persist!"

Sora looked up at Kingdom Hearts and noticed finally how it was shining with light so pure it was surrounded by a multicolored corona.

"Because it's right." He said, full of resolve and a hard look in his eyes.

Then another prolonged flash of light happened, during which Xehanort's keyblade changed. It now looked like two copies of Sora's Kingdom Key joined at the edge of the hilt and crossing blades. From the ends of the keys, two blades ran forward until they met at a point. Decorating the blade was a delicate looking corona of metal around the center.

The χ-blade.

Xehanort smiled in a way that suggested he was expecting this. Then—before Sore could even register this new change—Xehanort rushed forward and stabbed him in the heart, causing a massive explosion of light to engulf the top of the tower.

* * *

Sora was confused. He didn't hurt anymore and he felt weightless. He wondered if he was dead. But then dismissed the thought. He was still breathing.

He opened his eyes and saw that he was indeed floating. He was in the dive to the heart. He immediately rethought being so sure he was alive. After all he had no keyblade anymore so how else would he have gotten here?

Then it spoke. The soundless voice he had heard all his life. Always understood, but never really heard. Only now could he really put a name of sorts to this formless guide.

It was Kingdom Hearts.

 _Not Dead._

 _Alive._

 _Sheltered by our heart._

Now he was even more confused. He was being sheltered? Like his heart had done for Ventus twice upon a Time?

 _Yes._

There was silence for a time before the words came to him again.

 _So much destruction._

 _All over something that is **our**_

 _choice._

 _Help us to bring an end to this_

 _conflict._

Conflict? Which conflict? Who's choice? What are you talking about? Sora finally looked down to see where he was floating to. Down below him was a large platform covered in stained glass. What interested him, though, was the image the glass made. There was a picture of a shining heart as the backdrop, and just off to the side was him. He was shown sitting on a throne with a blindingly white floating crown overhead and in his hands, he held the χ-blade.

This mosaic was drastically different from his usual mosaic that showed himself sitting on the edge of the circle with all his friends in the center and the princesses of heart lining the outer ring. It was… disconcerting.

 _We have chosen._

 _We will only choose once._

 _Once..._

 _Only choose once..._

 _We will test you._

 _Test you..._

 _Test..._

Sora landed on the platform and began looking around. A test? Sora wondered at that for a moment. What test? And what would he be being tested for?

 _This is our succession ceremony._

 _Ceremony..._

 _Succession..._

 _Next in line..._

 _Does the chosen accept?_

But what was he accepting? What was being asked of him? The further this conversation dragged on, the less certain he was about his sanity.

 _Kingdom Hearts._

 _The seat of power over the worlds._

 _Power over worlds..._

 _Seat of power..._

 _Kingdom Hearts._

 _Hearts..._

 _Kingdom..._

 _Trust..._

 _Protect..._

 _People..._

 _King..._

 _Become King._

 _He_ mentally recoiled at the word 'king'. He had seen the things King Mickey had been willing to do in the name of duty. It was hard enough being a pseudo leader on the side of light, but magnify that responsibility to a kingly scale and it seemed almost too much to ask of anyone. But Kingdom Hearts had mentioned power over worlds. He was to be responsible for them all?

No. Hell no! That much power just wasn't worth it.

 _Only once shall we offer._

 _Break this endless cycle._

 _Endless cycle..._

 _Break..._

 _Become King._

 _Unite the worlds._

 _Let the light shine once more._

 _Shine again..._

 _Light..._

 _We offer this responsibility to you, key bearer._

 _And no other._

Sora took a few moments to think about his life; to really analyse the events that led to this point. It was hard for him to admit, but when he put his shame and his pride to the side, he had spent the majority of his life being manipulated—either directly or indirectly—by a power hungry old man. And it wasn't just his life or the lives of his friends. How many innocent people have had their lives ruined because of Xehanort? Then he had a more chilling thought; How many other 'Xehanorts' have done the exact same? Was this man just the latest in a long line of people clawing for power? He wasn't sure, but he realized what Kingdom Hearts was offering…

"If I accept, then what do you expect of me? What is this test?" He asked, feeling a moderate amount of trepidation building.

 _You will be tested._

 _You will fail._

 _We will break you._

 _Rebuild you until you pass._

 _Break you..._

 _Remake you..._

 _You must pass._

 _You will fail._

Sora held a fist in front of himself. "Fine then. If it means that this will be the last time anyone causes war for the power of Kingdom Hearts, then I'll do it." he said with a nod. Then his eyes widened in realization. His Keyblade! How could he have forgotten? "Erm… there's just one thing… I kind of don't have a weapon anymore. I don't know if I'll need one for your tests—"

 _As our King-to-be,_

 _you will wield a weapon_

 _fit for one._

 _The X-blade._

 _The King's weapon._

He knew it. He knew he was going to end up regretting the situation sooner or later, but he wasn't expecting it to happen immediately… Sora heaved a sigh and shook his head; Like he didn't have enough power already. Now he just had to find a way out of the dive… Almost before the thought entered his mind, a white door of light appeared in front of him. It reminded him of the door to light that let him escape the Dark Margin with Riku. He shrugged to himself and walked through.

* * *

He found himself back on top of the stone pillar, barely standing. Xehanort, he noted, had been blown across their stone platform. Then he groaned as a wave of pain hit him. He almost blacked out, but held on long enough to hear Kingdom Hearts again.

 _Call forth your blade._

 _X-blade..._

Laboriously, Sora raised a shaky hand towards the bright light of Kingdom Hearts and summoned his keyblade. At first, nothing happened. But then, several pieces of his shattered blade shot towards his hand from several directions—oddly the shards stuck in his body simply dissolved. There—in his palm—they began filling out their original shape until a heavily damaged Kingdom key was in his hand, missing some pieces here and there and it looked like it had had a mountain dropped on it. And that was when things got really strange as the keyblade began to glow until it was blindingly white. Then it began to morph in his hand until it became the χ-blade.

While this happened, Xehanort watched in rage and confusion as his χ-blade became twisted in shape and lost its light, which was replaced with darkness. It was a D-blade now; a dark keyblade that was a twisted facsimile of what it once was.

Sora felt his fatigue and pain just slip away. He stood straighter and felt the power of Kingdom Hearts fill him. Surprisingly, for how light it was, Kingdom Hearts' power was a true balance of light and darkness with light taking precedence due to its nature. He felt good, and he knew what he had to do.

Xehanort had very little warning before Sora was on him. He had barely deflected the first attack when the second was already on him—it was all he could do to keep up! Steadily, the pace picked up until several strikes were sliding through his guard between every other blow he parried and deflected. In an attempt to gain the upper hand, Xehanort blocked another strike and swiped his blade at Sora as he jumped back. He was sure that he was still the superior in magical skill, at least. After all, he had several decades of experience on the boy.

How wrong he was.

Sora was no novice spell caster, but he usually preferred to use his keyblade. Typically, he would not stand a chance against such a powerful spell caster and he would seek to shorten the distance between his opponent and himself. The key word was typically. Instead, Sora held up one hand and breathed a single word: "Thundaga."

From his outstretched palm shot the largest bolt of lightning he had ever produced. It was made all the more impressive by its white-blue color. The bolt struck Xehanort in the shoulder, vaporizing a portion of it and leaving behind a black smoking wound. Gritting his teeth through the pain, Xehanort decided to abandon long range combat and rushed Sora. To those watching, it looked like they were flickering in and out of existence with each clash sending shockwaves forth that shook the ground and threw those that stood too close like rag dolls. The more experienced of the keyblade wielders left standing—using their expertise— knew enough to know that they couldn't have matched up to either of the two titans doing battle. If anything, they were a liability to Sora by standing so close.

Then—gradually—they all watched as Xehanort was overwhelmed and systematically taken apart piece by bloody piece.

Sora was surprised. He had never had so much power at his disposal. Then he watched as one of his strikes caused a pressure wave that gouged the ground several hundred feet away, inadvertently killing several behemoths and other high level enemies. If he was being honest with himself, he was a bit wary after witnessing that. He wouldn't want to hit anyone on his side by accident. Then there was his so-called 'opponent'.

Xehanort was a bloody mess. He was missing an arm, he had the skin burned off one side of his face, both his legs were broken—badly enough that he had taken to floating with mana half way through the fight until he had run out of energy to do so. His clothes were in ruins and he was panting like a marathon runner. His dark, twisted keyblade had been broken at the hilt and he was currently kneeling, unable to stand.

Sora held off on his next attack and, for a time, they stared at one another. There was no malice, no words spoken, no glares. Just a matching of wills, and Xehanort was found lacking. The next move happened too fast for anyone but Sora to follow. One second they were staring and calm, the next Sora's χ-blade was speared through Xehanort's chest so hard that the last remnant of the stone pillar blew apart—shattered like glass.

When the dust cloud finished pelting the surrounds with shards of rock both large and small, it dissipated and settled to the ground. Everyone that could still move—Mickey, Riku, and Aqua—quickly ran to the ruins of the pillar. They arrived just in time to see Sora walking out of the wreckage, χ-blade in hand. They had immediately begun peppering him with questions when he held up a hand.

"Let's do this in a minute." he said as he lifted his χ-blade into the air. Moments later a blinding flash bounded across the battlefield, eradicating all of the leftover enemies in one go. He released the χ-blade and it shimmered out of existence. Then he turned to them and waved them on.

"Sora, what just happened?" Mickey asked.

Sora chuckled. Same old King Mickey. Straight to the point unless it's about him. "Kingdom Hearts kind of intervened."

"Intervened?" Riku asked, then swept a hand across the landscape. "I think it did more than just intervene."

"Okay, soooo…." And Sora proceeded to explain what he learned from Kingdom Hearts, with the occasional question from either Riku or Aqua for clarification while Mickey stayed quiet, processing the situation.

"I think…" Mickey began after some time, "That you made the best choice you could make, considering the circumstances. If you need any advice about ruling, I'm at your service." He said with a smile.

"Leave it to you to find the most ridiculous way to win…" Riku shook his head jokingly even as he smiled fondly.

"This is the first time I have ever heard of Kingdom Hearts actually connecting with someone of its own will…" Aqua mumbled as she tapped her chin with her forefinger.

Sora opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off when another door made of light materialized next to the group. Everyone stared at it, confused and wary of a possible attack by a third party. Until sora felt all his power leave him and he 'heard' Kingdom Hearts again.

 _The test begins now._

 _Your power will be reset for your safety._

 _You must earn it back._

"I see." Sora replied aloud. "Then I guess that was like a trial, huh?"

Everyone's attention snapped to Sora when he spoke, But he waved them off. "Kingdom Hearts is speaking to me again. I think my test is going to start now." they gave him nods of understanding as he turned his attention back to the quietly loud words being written into his heart by a silent voice.

 _The way is opened._

 _The door..._

 _To the beginning..._

 _Through the door..._

 _The outcome will depend on you._

 _Outcome..._

 _Beginning..._

 _Depends on you._

 _Fate has no hold on you._

 _Fateless..._

 _New beginning..._

 _But don't be afraid._

 _Because you are the one,_

 _who will sit on the throne._

 _Now._

 _Walk through the door._

Sora nodded to himself and gave his friends a pained smile. He wanted to stay and help with their dead. Lea and Kairi both needed to be sent off. Sora felt a twinge of pain in his chest at the thought of his two dead friends.

"Hey Axel! You wanna spar?!" Sora called to Lea across the courtyard at Radiant Garden. Lea face faulted mid-swing at Kairi. When he recovered, he got Sora in a headlock and started twisting his hair with every word he spoke. "The. Name. Is. Lea! Got. It. Memorized?" he heard Kairi's laughter echoing in the courtyard.

The memory faded to be replaced with several of Kairi, so many that they all came across in his mind as flashing images, accompanied with smells and sounds. He felt his chest constrict again at the loss of one of his oldest friends… But Kingdom Hearts would not be ignored.

"I have to go." Melancholy colored Sora's voice. "Riku… I'm sorry I can't…"

"I know." Riku said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You can pay your—your respects when you get back." he said, choking on the sentence halfway through.

Mickey patted his arm and wished him luck before moving off to help move the injured and gather the dead.

Aqua gave Sora a hug. "We will be here when you return."

Sora smiled as he returned the hug. "Yeah. Nowhere I'd rather be." he let her go and she left to find Ventus— presumably to give him a piece of her mind.

Riku hung around, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "I should see him off…"

Sora walked up to the door of light and turned around to look at his friends once more, etching each of their faces into his heart. He had a feeling that he wouldn't be seeing them all together for a long time now. Then he walked through the door and all he knew was darkness and the visions of his friends faces as they regrouped after their hard fought victory.


	2. Chapter 2 - Begin Again

**A/N: Well, here comes the second chapter. Hopefully I'll be able to crank these out a little quicker as time goes on. Please read and review, let me know about any mistakes that I may have missed, all the good stuff.**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing but my tears. And the corner I'm sat in.**

* * *

Chapter 2 - Begin Again

Sora woke from his nap with a start, throwing his covers off and springing out of bed into a battle ready stance. He was just slightly confused about where he was. The kind of confusion caused by being woken abruptly from a very deep sleep. This wasn't his room in his house at Radiant Garden, nor was it his room on the Highwind. He instantly jumped to the conclusion that he had been kidnapped.

But it was strange… he wasn't chained up… he wasn't drugged—as far as he could tell. And even more oddly, he wasn't in a cell of any kind. No… In fact, the floors were hardwood. And the walls—or the ones not covered in posters about blitzball—were white. All along the floor were several random articles of clothing, peppered with random objects like blitzballs or Sora's wooden sword.

This _was_ his room, he realized with a startled gasp, a room he had not been to in years. He greedily drank in the sight of a home he had missed like a man trapped in the desert would guzzle water.

In the back of his mind, he felt a great darkness gathering. The main bulk of it was—as one would expect—dark, but that was it. What had caught his interest was a single presence he could sense being hidden by the darkness. It was cold and volatile. And it was coming from the direction of his window...

His gaze snapped towards the window next to his bed. He was immediately hit with a wave of deja vous as he saw the island being steadily engulfed in darkness. Yep. Of course it was too good to be true. He couldn't just be home. He couldn't believe it.

Quickly, he scrambled over to the mirror above his dresser and what he saw dropped his jaw to the floor. His face and body were fourteen again. He touched his cheek lightly with a hand and noticed that his hand—no, both of them!—lacked the numerous little scars he had gotten on them over the years.

Then he did his first test.

 _Roxas?_

…

 _Hey, Roxas? You here?_

…

Nothing. Sora furrowed his brow and went through the possibilities. After selectively narrowing down his theories by making careful inferences based on his observations so far, he was left with three scenarios. He was in a place like Castle Oblivion again, had dreamed up everything that had happened to him, or he was really in the past. Given how Naminé had permanently bonded back to Kairi, he figured a Castle Oblivion situation wasn't going to be in the cards. No pun intended.

For his next test he summoned his keyblade and—to his astonishment—the χ-blade appeared in a swirling flash of light, throwing his dream theory out the window. Unfortunately the blade was a good deal longer than any other keyblade form he had ever used before, causing the last foot of the blade to carve off a chunk of his bookshelf.

 _Mom is gonna kill me..._

He pushed the errant thought from his mind and focused on the only theory he had left; he had been sent back to the past.

 _This_ was his test?

He snapped out of his reverie when he caught a reflection of the island being swallowed by darkness in the mirror. He didn't have time for this! He cast his gaze around the floor and put on the first set of clothes he found, incidentally putting on the same set of clothes that he had worn during his first adventure.

After desummoning his blade and carefully sneaking out—a feat that was easier said than done as his mother was cooking dinner downstairs at the time, Sora sprinted through town towards the docks. As he ran, he briefly wondered if he should go see his mom, but decided against it. He wouldn't be strong enough to leave again to complete the test if he did and he didn't have the time anyway.

He swiftly unhitched his boat and began rowing towards the island as his brain went into overdrive, trying to remember exactly what happened on the island that night. He was unsure, but he thought he went to the cave first. Or maybe he found Riku? More importantly, he was trying to figure out what to do when he got there.

Should he make changes?

While his body wasn't the world saving badass that it had been, he felt confident that he could kick Riku's ass using his years of experience and stop him from leaving. But that wouldn't stop their world from disappearing.

Then there was Kairi. Maybe he could shield her from the wave of darkness that spirited her away and left her heart inside of him?

If he did change things, how would he meet up with Donald and Goofy?

When his boat reached the shore—his arms and back already aching from his frantic pace—he still hadn't made up his mind. He tied off the boat and surveyed the island. Portions of the catwalk to the observation deck were disappearing like smoke and the water surrounding the beach was beginning to float upwards through the air and into the gaping maw of a bubble of darkness.

The slowly disappearing island was the least of his concerns as he was surrounded by dozens of shadows. Irked by the roadblock, he ran past them in a flurry of rolls, slides and flips. He ran around the edge of the dock and around the tree that was in the center of their small island. Finally—as he dodged the last of the shadows in his way—he came upon the white door that was blocking the cavern. And it was locked. Sora looked at the door, dumbfounded.

What was he supposed to do?

He probably couldn't unlock it with his keyblade, because it was a defense put up by the heart of the world to defend against the darkness. But he also knew that Kairi was behind that door. He hesitated a moment before his choice was made for him. He was forced back away from the door, only for several soldier heartless to appear and take his place. Mindless as they were, they wasted no time before trying to get behind the door. Their attempts didn't have a chance to begin in earnest, however, as the first of them to smash themselves against it disappeared behind a flash of light.

"Okay, so I guess Kairi is more safe than Riku at the moment." he muttered to himself as more and more heartless tried the door, only to share the same fate as the first.

He swung around in the opposite direction, jumped off the walkway and climbed up the side of the shack that led to the bridge. He could already see Riku in the distance as he opened himself to the darkness. Sora had to dodge around two more heartless that spawned in his way, nearly falling off the bridge in the process. He flicked a hand in their direction, sending a Fire spell flying towards each one. He didn't have to look back to know they were destroyed, but he did note that it took more mana than usual to do so.

He stepped off the bridge and onto the islet. Riku had his back to him and was looking up at a sphere of darkness that had formed and had been slowly getting bigger as the island disappeared.

"The door is open…" Riku said as he turned around to face Sora. "We can finally go to other worlds! Come on, Sora." He stretched a hand towards Sora as if offering something. "We may never come back here—or see our parents again—but this could be our only chance!"

Sora sighed. He saw the gleam in Riku's eyes. He never knew before, how early it really was that the possession began taking root. Riku had always been more rebellious against fate than either Kairi or himself, but this was a bit much—even for him.

 _Damned Xehanort!_

Sora was furious, but was careful not to let it show on his face. He must have failed in some way, as Riku flinched slightly before Sora spoke.

"Aren't you forgetting someone in all this? Are we no longer a trio?" Sora asked, his voice quiet and calm. Maybe even a little _too_ calm…

"Kairi is coming too!" Riku shouted as Darkness began pooling around his feet, tendrils of the thick oily shadow writhing around his body and wrapping it up.

"Riku! Don't open your heart to the darkness! You're being possessed!" Sora shouted. He continued screaming everything he could think of to stop Riku from leaving, but nothing got through to him.

""Darkness is the way forward, Sora! Embrace it!" Riku tilted his head back and closed his eyes as the darkness fully enveloped him.

Sora shook his head. He couldn't help Riku now; his heart was being filled with darkness. Even if he beat the shit out of Riku, he was already possessed. At this rate, he would probably end up with Riku's keyblade again… If he still has Ventus' heart, that is. Well, at least he could avoid advertising his possession of the χ-blade for a while yet.

While he had been thinking this, Riku had disappeared into the pit of darkness and another pit had been forming beneath Sora's feet. He let the tendrils get to his waist before he decided that this was getting too close to looking like a tentacle hentai and summoned his χ-blade… only to have the kingdom key materialize in his hands.

Well, not what he was after, but it would do the job. In any case, he supposed it was more proof that he was in the past. It meant that he held Ventus' heart again.

 _Another thing on the to-do list._

He raised it into the air and released a pulse of light, causing the stain of darkness beneath him to destabilize and fade away. Armed with his purloined keyblade, Sora turned around and ran back over the bridge, releasing pulses of light—which was just about his only useful ability now besides maybe Strike Raid—every few feet to repel the lesser heartless. He killed a few soldiers that were immune to the fearing effects of his pulses then jumped off the roof of the wooden shack. He killed a few more hapless grunts that were standing in front of the white door and desummoned the Kingdom Key.

This time when he tried the door, it allowed him passage before slamming shut behind him with a dull thud. He waited a second to be sure no heartless would follow him in, then proceeded when he felt confident that the door had raised a barrier in front of itself. As he walked, he looked at the drawings that covered the walls. Each one was crude—in a childish sort of way—and the white scratch marks of every drawing had been gone over several times to avoid fading. He let the memories surrounding each one come and go—allowing himself to think of happier times.

Then he came upon the door at the end of the hallway and his drawing next to it. When he thought back on it, the addition of the paopu fruit to the drawing had been a touch childish, but seeing it, he couldn't help but make two additions. He added Riku's face above his and Kairi's, forming a triangle. Then he drew in arms extending to the paopu fruit from both Riku's and Kairi's heads so that they all were touching part of the fruit of binding fates. His new hope would be for them all to be together again—like they used to be when they were kids.

When he was done, he admired his handiwork with a smile on his face that didn't quite reach his eyes. Then he sensed the presence behind him. The meddlesome man had finally decided to make his presence known. Coward. Sora turned around and saw a tall, slim figure wearing a ruddy brown cloak with the hood pulled up.

"So. If you're going to watch me, can I at least know your name?" Sora quirked an eyebrow and summoned his Kingdom Key while he sank into a battle stance.

The cloaked figure flinched slightly, as though they weren't used to being taken off guard. They were quiet for a time, as though mulling over their answer. "You may call me Xehanort."

Outwardly, Sora gave away nothing. A fact he was very proud of. But inside he seethed at having his suspicions confirmed. Xehanort had been here to possess Riku and set the rest of this shit show into motion. "Okay… Xehanort. What do you want?"

"The door has opened."

"Uh huh…" Sora deadpanned "And your point is… ?"

Xehanort flinched, his hands balling into fists. He moved as if to say something else, but paused before turning around and walking off.

"Hey! We aren't done here!" Sora shouted as he ran after Xehanort.

He was about to turn the corner when he heard shuffling behind him. He stopped on the spot and whipped around in time to see Kairi hobbling around the root in front of the alcove by the door to the world heart. She looked sickly pale and weak as she was using the root to support her weight.

"Kairi!" Sora started toward her.

Kairi only had time to look up at him before the door to the world heart burst open, releasing a wave of darkness. Faster than Sora thought he was capable of moving, he summoned his χ-blade and threw it towards the door. It was close, but the χ-blade reached the wave before it could hit Kairi and let off a massive pulse of light, costing Sora about half of his magical power.

Sora fought through the sudden drain and snatched up Kairi before turning tail and getting out of the tunnel. When they reached the door, he summoned his Kingdom Key and—while levitating it with a bit of mana—used it to unlock the door.

Just as they got out the door, the χ-blade desummoned and the wave of darkness crashed through the opening, missing them by inches as they jumped into the pool of water.

Kairi sat up out of the water first, sputtering and shaking the water out of her hair. Her face had regained some of its color and she looked much less delirious. Instead she looked mortified as she took in their surroundings.

Most of everything had faded away. The only thing that was still there was the beach and parts of the dock. And beyond the smoke like edges of what was left of their little island, was a wall of darkness. Thick. Foreboding. And absolute.

Sora, having seen all this before—and not caring for the reminder—climbed out of the pool first and offered her a hand. After hauling Kairi to her feet, Sora led her over to the edge of the beach.

"Kairi, our island is fading." He said, looking at her intently, willing her to understand through the shock, "If we stay any longer, we will disappear too and we won't be able to find Riku. Understand?"

Kairi looked at him for a moment before her eyes gained a determined look. "Okay," she looked around them for a moment, "but how are we supposed to get off the island? The boats are gone… and the water… "

The corner of Sora's mouth quirked upward, "We don't need a boat where we're going."

Kairi watched in fascination as Sora summoned his χ-blade. He pointed it into the sky in front of them and a beam of light shot out, opening a door to the lanes between. Then he threw his χ-blade into the air and it transformed into an intricate and delicate looking pair of wings that attached themselves to his back.

He gently levitated off the ground and Kairi gasped.

"You can fly…" she breathed out.

"You'll be able to do it too. But for now…" he summoned his Kingdom Key and pulled the keychain off of it. Then he snatched up Kairi's wrist and wound the chain around it. There was a small ripple effect from it as her body was enveloped in a softly illuminated barrier.

"We have to protect you from the darkness in the lanes.", he said in explanation at her questioning gaze. She still looked slightly confused, but nodded nonetheless.

Sora—to protect himself—increased the output of his heart's light before he picked up Kairi bridal style.

Sora shifted his grip on her a little, "You comfortable? It'll be a few minutes to get to where we're going."

Kairi nodded an affirmative before she was forced to wrap her arms around Sora's neck as they rapidly ascended and shot through the portal before it closed behind them.

The world was covered in water and blue crystalline glaciers. For miles around, the only visible structure was a giant castle that was dark and twisted on one side, and a wild assortment of steam pipes and gears on the other.

A black raven flew around the base of the massive fortress, slowly ascending in a lazy spiral along the outer confines of the building. It deftly swooped, rolled and veered where it was necessary to avoid pieces of the castle on the way to the top.

The highest portion of the darkly regal estate was a tower that was open to the air on one side, allowing the raven to fly through and land on its mistress' shoulder.

The woman had long brown—almost black—hair, her eyes and facial features were sharp but not unattractively so—in fact she was quite beautiful. Her skin was as pale as porcelain and her lips were painted a soft pink. Her forehead was punctuated by two long, slightly curled horns that were black and adorned with purple lacings. She wore a purple cloak draped over a skin tight black bodysuit.

She was sat at a table with several other shadowy figures, detailing her plans to them. When the raven landed on her shoulder she pet it, "Greetings Diablo." She crooned to it.

The raven—Diablo as the woman called it—croaked a response and flew off to Perch on a beam above their heads.

"You all have your orders. Subjugate your worlds—a job that will be made easier by my heartless—and find the other seven princesses of light." The woman tilted her head towards a the figure of a tall man with a turban on his head, "You, I believe, are the only one who's world hosts a princess of heart. Your task will be to capture her while you take over. You will, of course, be given extra heartless to do so and a lieutenant to help you."

At the mention of the word lieutenant, a brown cloaked figure—Xehanort—stepped forward and nodded. "The boy shall be along in a few days time. I must first teach him a few things."

"That will be acceptable. I still have a few weeks before I can make my move. I have a plan in the works, but the pieces must be maneuvered into their proper places first." The tall shadowy figure replied in a smooth tone, giving him an air of glib confidence.

Xehanort simply nodded in reply, his brown hood bobbing up then down slightly.

"Very well then. You all have your orders," the woman looked around the table and gestured to each in turn, "In a few months time we shall begin gathering the princesses of heart in earnest!"

The assembled baddies responded in a chorus, "Your will, Maleficent!"

"Woah! Watch it!"

"Wait wait wait!"

"Oof!"

"Owww!"

Sora and Kairi untangled themselves from each other while the χ-blade desummoned. When they were both standing Sora stood to the side with a sheepish expression while he rubbed the back of his head. Kairi meanwhile was glaring at him as she hurriedly unwrapped the keychain from her wrist.

"Sorry… " Sora muttered, embarrassed by his lack of control.

Upon exiting the portal they had almost crashed into the roof of the accessory shop, only to veer left and crash around the corner into a group of boxes. This was made worse by the speed at which they had made the journey.

Sora had, in his worry that the darkness in the lanes between would badly affect both of them, gone much faster than he was intending. Thus he turned a fifteen minute flight into a four minute sprint. He had been completely unprepared for the end portal to zoom into view.

Kairi glared for a second more, then dropped it with a playful chuckle and a smile, "That's okay. At least we got here…"

"..."

"...where exactly _is_ 'here'?", she asked while she looked around the alleyway they had landed in.

Sora smiled brightly, "Welcome to Traverse Town!" He swept his arm across the alleyway dramatically and held a pose.

Kairi looked at him oddly for a moment before they both burst out laughing. Kairi straightened up and wiped away an errant tear. "Here," she held out the keychain for the Kingdom Key.

Sora took the mouse ladened chain and banished it, knowing it would end up reattached to the Kingdom Key. Then he motioned for Kairi to follow him, "Come on!"

As they emerged from the alley to stand at the top of the stairs in front of the accessory shop, they were greeted by a sight that was amazingly outlandish to Kairi and comfortingly nostalgic to Sora. They saw the doors to the third district and the docks; the courtyard between that was full of people that were displaced from their worlds; they saw the neon sign for the Item shop to their right and to complete it all, they caught a glimpse of tidus, wakka and selphie amongst the masses.

Kairi looked at Sora with a smile on her face, "Let's go!" She grabbed his hand and he let himself be tugged along with a mental shrug. He was just glad she hadn't had time to question him yet. But he knew he would have to spill the beans to her before they met up with Donald and Goofy. Or perhaps it would be better if he told all three of them together? It would certainly cut down on how many times he would have to—

His thoughts were suddenly cut short as they brushed by a man with long brownish black hair and a scar on his face. It was Leon. Sora stiffened and it was all he could do to not turn around and look back. He could practically feel Leon's gaze boring into his back—like a laser beam being shot by Xemnas—and instinctively he knew that soon they would have a ninja shaped shadow following them around the districts.

"Hey Sora! Kairi!", Tidus greeted them with a big wave as they approached the trio. Sora nodded and Kairi gave Selphie a hug.

"Guess you guys ended up here too?" Sora asked, already knowing the answer.

Wakka nodded, "Ya, It was all darkness for a while there. But we all woke up here, and we've been keeping an eye out for anyone we know since then."

"Oh! Have you seen Riku at all?" Kairi looked to each of them questioningly.

Sora turned away from the conversation at that point, more focused on the Shadow heartless he saw disappear around the corner of the accessory shop. He let them talk a while more before he cut in.

"Hey, you guys haven't searched the other districts yet, right?", he knew they hadn't, "How about Me and Kairi go and look around? Maybe we will find someone you missed?"

The trio looked sheepish at not having looked anywhere but the courtyard, but they agreed and each promised they would keep their eyes peeled for Riku or their parents.

"You can count on us!", Tidus assured them as they walked away towards the accessory shop.

Sora and Kairi gave a wave before they turned the corner. As they walked along passing several shops and inns, Sora was trying to remember what he had done at this point in the old timeline. If he was remembering right, he had just walked around randomly looking for Riku and Kairi in all of the districts while he exterminated heartless…

 _Crap!_

Sora stopped when they reached the door to the second district. Kairi wasn't expecting the stop and continued on for a few steps before reaching the door. It was only when she had reached her hand up to it that she noticed that Sora had stopped.

"What is it?" Kairi turned and looked at him curiously.

"Look I can't explain everything yet, but before we go any further," he summoned the Kingdom Key, "we need to get you armed."

Kairi looked between him and the keyblade for a few moments before leveling a pointed look at him.

"You promise you will explain?"

Sora nodded with a grin, "Promise."

She tilted her head to the side and scrunched her face in consideration. Sora felt his grin slipping every second she was silent. Just when he thought he would have to spill the beans early, she spoke.

"Alright." She flashed him an understanding smile. "As long as you promise. Where can we get me something to use?" She glanced at a store down the road.

Sora sighed in relief. "Well, if I'm right then you already have it. Or the means to call it, at least."

He threw his keyblade to the side, banishing it in a shower of light, and held out his hand gesturing for Kairi to do the same. When her hand was outstretched, he told her to close her eyes.

"It'll help you feel it."

"But what am I supposed to be feeling?" She asked with a giggle, finding the whole exorcise a bit silly.

"Just reach out with your heart, it'll feel like that piece of 'you' that you've been missing." Sora looked at his palm with a bittersweet smile. "It should be easy for you; you actually have one to call on that belongs to you."

He looked up at Kairi to see her fully enraptured in the process of feeling for her keyblade. They stood there for a few moments more before a small flash of light briefly lit up their surroundings. He saw Kairi's hand sag with the weight of the forming keyblade. Her keyblade.

The keyblade had a rounded and curved handguard with one side taking the form of a breaking wave and the other a curved sandbar. The shaft of the blade was reminiscent of a sunset with a green vine wrapped around it from the base of the hilt to the top of the shaft. There the vine connected with several flowers that took the shape of a heart. The keychain took the form of a red silk ribbon that connected to a sunflower.

Kairi opened her eyes and stared at the beautiful weapon in awe. She was speechless, at least until she began wondering what it was called. She looked like she was about to ask that very question, but what came out instead was, "Destiny's Embrace…"

Sora smiled and gave her a nod, "That's right. And now we can go look for some friends."

Kairi tore her gaze away from her newly acquired keyblade and gave Sora a nod. "Right."

Then they both charged through the door to the second district.

"Gawrsh, Donald. Do ya think the keyblade wielder is here?" Goofy, an anthropomorphic dog, looked into the crowd of people in the commons in the first district of Traverse Town.

"The King's letter was specific! He wants us to look in Traverse Town for the Keybearer." Donald, an anthropomorphic duck, replied.

They walked further through the crowd looking hither and yon for… looking for…

"A-hyuk! What do ya think a keyblade bearer looks like?" Goofy scratched the side of his head in wonder.

Donald stopped short, his leg still in the air as goofy walked on. "Aww, Phooey! "

Unbeknownst to them, Leon was watching from a nearby café table. He took out a communication gummy and spoke into it, "Yuffie. Do you have a line of sight on our two keyblade users?"

The block hissed with static for a moment before a reply screamed through.

"SQUALL!"

Leon jumped and fumbled with the gummy piece, putting on a spectacular show for the other nearby patrons. When he finally got a handle on it, he turned his back to the majority of the shop to hide his embarrassed expression.

"Don't call me that… Do you see them or not?"

He heard a few grumbles and some mumbled words from her side of the line, "Stupid bird-head… blow my cover… should tell Aerith…"

The line was silent for a while before she properly answered him, "Oh yeah, I see them." before going silent again.

"And?" Leon asked impatiently.

"Well, the girl is about what you expected of them, green and somewhat awkward to the whole fighting thing…" Yuffie petered off, the com-gummy crackling as she ended her transmission.

"And the boy?" Leon asked, a steady throbbing building in his temples at dealing with the young, rambunxious ninja.

"Oh, _him_ … " Yuffie's voice took on an almost admirative quality, "He moves like he was _born_ doing this. His physical attacks are a bit weak, the strongest thing I've seen him do in that category is hurl his keyblade at a Large Body and recall it. He hasn't done much magically, but the few things I _have_ seen were impressive."

"And they both wield a keyblade?" Leon pondered this development. The king had told him that only one keyblade wielder would appear. Perhaps he had meant that _at least_ one keyblade wielder would appear?

"Yep. They look different, but they look like keys to my eyes." Yuffie responded casually.

"Fine, Keep an eye on them. I plan on meeting them in the third district…" He glanced in the direction of Donald and Goofy, "After taking care of some associates that I've just spotted."

"Roger!" the com-gummy hissed and crackled before going silent.

Leon rubbed his temples before he left his table behind and stalked off in the same direction as the odd knight and the short wizard.

"That shop was weird… What's even the point of it? And why were so many of those…" Kairi paused her rant to look at Sora in prompt.

"Heartless." He supplied wearily.

"Yeah, them! Why are they all over the place?" She finished, throwing her hands up in the air.

They had spent the last two hours removing any and all heartless from Traverse Town as they explored the district. They had begun in the courtyard when they had caught the attention of a few Soldier heartless, and the battle had simply escalated from there. They were bombarded on all sides by Shadows, Soldiers and even a few Large Bodies. Sometime after killing his hundredth Soldier—he hadn't bothered counting the hundreds of Shadows—before they even made their way to the hotel, Sora had to admit to himself that there were definitely more this time around.

Regardless, by the time they had cleared the hotel—including the alley behind it—Kairi was in a rile. Then they had to fight their way into the Gizmo Shop. That had been enough to get Sora into a mood that just shouted 'No more! I'm done!'. Then there was the veritable army of heartless that had infested the large and confusing shop. They had to fight on and around large pieces of machinery—most of which was still active—while avoiding becoming swamped by the several dozen heartless that had crammed themselves into every available corner of the shop. The worst of it came when the shadows decided that the machines would be fun to possess, making them move in an attempt to crush either Sora or Kairi at every opportunity. Now, after destroying about two thousand heartless between the two of them and—in Kairi's case—being ready to drop, they were making their way to the door leading to the third district.

"And there's still no sign of anyone we know…", Sora moped.

 _Where the hell are Donald and Goofy…_

He had really been hoping that they would have run into each other this time around. Hell, he couldn't expect _everything_ to turn out the same this go around, could he? He glanced over to Kairi as she swung her keyblade through another Shadow, destroying it in a spray of dark smoke. No. He could change things now. His gaze hardened and flicked towards the third district doors.

 _The outcome depends on me, huh?_

The longer he spent in this past time, the less certain he was that it was some illusion created by Kingdom Hearts. Unlimited power or not, this was too detailed for an illusion. Too real. But then he had to wonder why he remembered anything from the previous timeline at all. Did that time still exist? Or was it gone? What about his friends?

And as it had been since he woke up, no answers were forthcoming. Kingdom Hearts remained silent.

His weariness grew into a slight agitation as he felt a presence move on the rooftop adjacent to them. Whoever they are—not that he didn't have his suspicions—were interfering in his attempts to get Kairi more used to using her keyblade. As they walked into the third district, there were no heartless. The area was suspiciously devoid of them.

 _Perfect._

"Kairi, wait up." he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. To the sky he called out, "Hey! Whoever you are, show yourself! You've followed us long enough!"

He felt the presence recoil at being called out, but then it moved. Or more accurately, _She_ moved. Short black hair, rounded facial features with a pointed chin. She wore a black forehead protector and a yellow scarf around her neck. She wore a green halter top, leaving her midriff exposed with a shoulder guard strapped onto her left arm. Her legs were covered—if such a word could be applied—by tan short-shorts leaving her long legs open down to the midpoint of her calves, where they met with white socks and ankle height boots. She held up her hands, clothed in brown leather gloves, in surrender.

"Okaaaaay, you've got me… " she drawled, then she continued in a sing-song voice, "I'm Yuffie Kisaragi, your friendly neighborhood thief!"

Sora felt a sweatdrop form on the back of his head as his face twisted into a placating grin. Kairi—who had been a mixture of surprised and exhausted—listened to her tired body's commands and facefaulted. It was all Sora could do not to facepalm at that lackadaisical introduction. In fact, the only reason he didn't was because he was too busy memorizing Yuffie's energy signature.

"Ooookay… " Sora glanced down at Kairi who, lacking the will to get back up off the ground, had turned her head to keep the self-proclaimed thief in view. "Why were you watching us?"

"Well…" Yuffie tapped her chin as though thinking about her answer, "It was all part of a test from—"

"Me.", Leon's voice cut her off. "I wanted to see what kind of person was wielding the keyblade. But I wasn't expecting two of you."

Kairi lifted an arm in Sora's direction, "Address all questions to the senior wielder… "

Sora's eye twitched.

 _Did she just throw me out off the boat?_

He didn't get a chance to ponder this as he was already being set upon by a large blade. He summoned his keyblade and parried as best as he could before breaking away. He briefly got a glimpse of Leon's gunblade, a large blade that looked like it was more or less growing out if the curved handle of a gun with the hilt being replaced by a large bullet cylinder. Leon held the massive assemblage in both hands as he swung again, chaining multiple strikes together.

Sora, for the most part, stayed on the defensive. He evaded each strike with as little effort as possible, leaving scant centimeters between Leon's blade and himself. He had precious little energy left and he needed to save as much as he could. With each swipe that he avoided, he backed further away from Kairi and Yuffie. Then when he was far enough away he parried one of the strikes, throwing the blade wide and putting leon off balance for a moment. That was all that was needed. Before Leon could blink, it was over. The last thing he saw before succumbing to unconsciousness was Sora standing over him, looking concerned.

"You hit him too hard."

"I said I was sorry! It's hard to hold back after fighting about a thousand heartless… "

"Shh! I think he's waking up. Squall?"

Leon's eyes lazily creaked open, "Tol you not call m' that…" He said, the last vestiges of unconsciousness slurring his words.

"Hmmm. He's alright." a new voice said. It belonged to a young woman who had soft green eyes and brown hair that was in a twisted ponytail down her back, and hung over her forehead in two large bangs.

"Aerith?" Leon asked.

"Yep, and I'm here, Sora and Kairi too!" Yuffie answered and provided introduction now that Leon was looking around the room.

"So, I lost pretty badly, huh?" He tilted his chin up towards Sora.

Sora shook his head, "Not too badly. You were doing fine, I'm just a touch faster, that's all. I managed to slip past your guard after unbalancing you for a moment. Anyone else wouldn't have been able to do it."

Leon shook his head, he liked the kid's modesty but he knew he had lost out of more than just luck. Then he widened his eyes in realization, "The King's emissaries!—"

"We already told Sora and Kairi about them. They will all meet shortly, as Sora insisted he wait until you awoke." Aerith looked toward Sora with kind eyes, "He felt responsible."

Sora rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "Felt kind of bad to just end the fight before you could get serious." He looked at Leon with a half smile and held out his closed fist, "We'll have a rematch when you're up to it. Promise!"

Leon chuckled a little before they heard screaming coming from outside. He attempted to get up, but was held down with a gentle hand and a stern look from Aerith. The message was clear, 'Leave this bed, and I'll end you.' He glanced pleadingly towards Sora, who nodded and turned to leave.

Kairi began to get up from her chair that she had been falling asleep in, only for Sora to put a hand on her shoulder. "Rest. I've got this."

She nodded tiredly and settled back into the chair. Leon caught Yuffie's gaze and she nodded before following Sora out of the room and towards the commotion.

Outside was complete pandemonium as people ran from the first district and into the second. Sora and Yuffie glanced at each other and took off in a blaze of speed toward the first district. As they ran along, they noticed that there were fewer and fewer people until there was no one on the streets at all. Then they landed on the rooftop of the Accessory Shop and saw the reason for the commotion. It was a large heartless in the form of a suit of armor. Its head, torso and limbs were all independent of each other. And it was being fought by Donald and Goofy.

They looked to be having a rough time of it. Donald was bruised up from being thrown, most likely through a nearby café if the broken tables were anything to go by. Goofy's armor was shredded in several places, exposing the bleeding flesh beneath. Donald was gathering strength for a spell when the gauntlets broke away and began spinning in a tornado of metal heading straight for Goofy.

Sora called his kingdom key and hurled it at the whirlwind of sharp edges before it could get to Goofy. The keyblade flew into the gauntlets and they spun together in a shower of sparks until they lost all momentum. Donald finished charging his thunder spell and let loose on the main body. At the same time, Yuffie charged her large shuriken with mana and threw it at the back of the armored torso. Both attacks connected, stunning the torso piece and causing it to twitch wildly as electricity crackled all along it.

Meanwhile, Sora had summoned his fallen keyblade to his hands and rushed the feet. He started with a thrust that turned into a knock up blow. Once one of the feet were in the air, he jumped and destroyed it in a flurry of slashes.

Goofy had recovered from his surprise at being saved from the gauntlets and pressed his attack, bashing his shield into one of the downed gauntlets. As the gauntlet disappeared in a shower of sparks, Yuffie took care of the other with a few well placed kunai.

Donald, having gathered mana for another spell, shot a fireball at the other foot. The massive conflagration of fire slammed into the armored appendage, leaving nothing behind, besides a scorch mark.

The torso finally broke paralysis, just in time for Donald to finish off its foot. In a fit of desperate rage, it cast magnet and began spinning rapidly as everyone was drawn into it.

Sora and Goofy—both preferring melee combat—let themselves be pulled in, their weapons poised for an attack. Donald held himself in place with a bit of mana and unleashed a Water spell to cancel out the effects of the Magnet spell. Yuffie supercharged her oversized shuriken with mana and threw it at the torso, causing them to clash and stopping the torso's spinning motion.

When Goofy reached the torso, it was staying still. He saw Sora moving towards a point above the heartless in the corner of his eye, dictating his next move. He shoved his shield underneath the armored heartless and shot it high into the sky.

Sora flew straight into the path of the heartless and slammed his keyblade into its helmet, sending it rocketing down into the cobbles below. He hung there for a moment—keyblade extended—before several rays of light shot out of the tip of the blade, spearing the Guard Armor right through the emblem and releasing a heart that went floating into the sky.

When Sora landed, he was clapped on the back by Goofy, "Gee, thanks pal."

"It's no problem." Sora gave a thumbs up.

"Happy to help!" Yuffie said while trying to discreetly pocket some of the munny that was scattered around from the running crowd.

Sora and Donald face faulted while Goofy just looked at her innocently, unaware of her misdeed.

"Anyway… " Sora began as he picked himself up off the ground, "I'm Sora. Nice ta meet ya."

Donald did his best approximation of a royal bow, "Donald Duck. Court wizard."

Goofy pumped his fist, "I'm Goofy! Captain o' the Kings knights!"

Yuffie brushed some imaginary dirt off her shoulder, "I'm Yuffie Kisaragi. Thief extraordinaire!"

Sora chuckled a bit at her antics while Donald and Goofy just looked askance at her. Apparently they couldn't appreciate her humor just yet. He mentally shrugged; They would all be thick as thieves soon enough.

"Let's just get back… " Sora said as he walked up the stairs to the Accessory Shop. As he walked along he pondered what he now marked as the second event in this timeline that was different without his interference. The Guard Armor had attacked the first district this time around—rather than the third district—and his meeting with Donald and Goofy had gone much more smoothly, and with fewer falls this time around. He was beginning to think that things were happening differently simply because _he_ was different. He probably could have analyzed things forever, but he was broken from his reverie with their arrival at the hotel.

Once they were all in the room, and everyone was comfortably seated, Leon began explaining what the keyblade was to Donald, Goofy and Kairi. Sora had heard it all before and so had spent that time doing a simple magic exorcise. Yuffie caught him not paying attention and flicked a shuriken at him. Sora almost burst out laughing at the look on her face when it simply stopped dead in front of him and began floating around his body. He sent it floating back, and she was delighted to see that it stayed floating until she threw it at him again. Thus began—as they would both admit later—a very stupid game. They threw several shurikens back and forth, slowly adding other objects into the mix, until a few of the smaller room furnishings were floating around. A chair had just floated by his head when Leon—who had developed several tick marks on his forehead—had decided he had had quite enough.

"Knock. It. Off!" His chest heaved and his hands were fisted by his sides.

All of the floating objects in the room drifted to their proper places, Yuffie's shuriken floating over to her and waiting to be put away. Leon glared between the two of them, both wearing sheepish expressions and unable to meet his gaze. He continued to look at them expectantly until they both cracked.

"I'm sorry, Leon/Squall…" They both chorused, voices contrite.

Leon's eye twitched while everyone else in the room struggled to stifle a giggle. Before Leon could blow up again Aerith stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder, noticeably cooling him off.

"Hmph… " he grunted as he went to sulk in the corner of the room next to Cid.

"So, as Leon was explaining, you four must find the King and defeat the heartless. Every world you travel to can have the keyhole to the heart of the world locked, preventing heartless from getting to it and stopping the heart drawing more heartless to that world." Aerith finished explaining with an easy smile on her face, as though none of what she explained would be difficult.

"Sounds okay to me, " Kairi looked to Sora, who nodded, "As long as you two won't mind us tagging along?" She looked to Donald and Goofy who looked at each other for a moment.

"That's fine by us." Donald said, nodding in both their directions.

Goofy smiled, "Besides, our mission is ta find and help that there keybearer. And cuz there's two of ya, it just makes sense ta stick together!"

They each stood and faced each other in a circle.

"To destroy tha heartless!" Donald said, putting his hand in the middle.

"Ta find the King." Goofy said adding his hand.

"To find Riku." Kairi said placing her hand above Goofy's

They each looked to Sora, waiting for him to do the same. He looked at his hand, unsure of what to say. He had a great many goals, but he couldn't decide on which to let become his main focus. He didn't want to be obsessed with killing Xehanort. He didn't feel that striving to become a king at all costs was a good goal either. Then it came to him. He was given another chance in the form of this test. He could get it right this time.

With a slight smile, and a building feeling of hope, Sora placed his hand in the pile, "To protect my friends."

They broke apart from the contact, their party established. Sora felt the tingle of mana on his skin as a sense of his companion's skills, mana reserves and general well being entered his mind. Then he panicked as he watched their faced collectively pale and turn to him in question.

 _Shit._

Well, Kingdom Hearts hadn't exactly said he _couldn't_ tell anyone about it… Sora sighed—he felt that somehow this would bite him in the ass—and took a position by the window in the middle of the room. "You should all sit down for this. I won't tell you more than you should know, but I'll tell you what I can."

Everyone that hadn't just felt his mana reserves and his perfect balance of light and darkness exchanged confused glances at his sudden announcement. Noticing that Sora's other party members had sat without a comment, everyone else decided to do the same.

Over the next hour, and with much editing to make names and certain events very vague, Sora told them of the fight that led him to be marked for succession by Kingdom Hearts. He told them of the dive to the heart and the test. Their reactions to the conditions of the test were varied. Leon and Cid looked pensive, Aerith looked unconcerned, and Yuffie looked like she had struck gold. Donald looked like he was overloading while goofy was taking it in stride. Kairi however, was looking like she had just had an epiphany.

"So _that's_ why you don't use the other one!", she blurted out, then covered her mouth with both hands.

Sora flinched a little, but accepted that he would have to explain _that_ too. He summoned the Kingdom Key and held it aloft for them all to see.

"This," he began, "is _not_ my keyblade."

"But then, who's is it?" Yuffie asked.

"It kind of belongs to Riku…" Sora replied, looking nervously at Kairi. "That's why I want to find him. He needs it back… "

"Is it one of those things you can't tell us?" Leon asked, his eyes narrowed slightly.

"Yes." Sora replied simply. He banished the Kingdom Key and summoned his χ-blade. And noticed that he had put a hole in the ceiling, "Damnit!" he swore as he yanked the damned thing out of the ceiling and held it parallel with the floor.

Everyone chuckled openly at his mishap.

He gave them each a dark glare before continuing, "This is the χ-blade. It has no other name, because every other keyblade in existence is a flawed copy of it. I don't use it because I don't want the wrong people knowing that I have it." he sent it away in a burst of light.

Then he added quietly, "And my body isn't strong enough to take the strain of wielding it yet."

The room was silent for quite some time. He wasn't surprised really seeing as he had spent the better part of the last hour being a metaphorical hose, spewing exposition all over the room. If anything, he would have been surprised if they hadn't taken a minute to process it all. And, if he was honest with himself, he was glad to have finally told them. He just wasn't the scheming type. He was more of a force of nature; he went his own path while being uneasily deterred and when he came across an obstacle, he cast Cure as many times as necessary and threw more power at the problem until it was a smoking crater in the ground. Then he started thinking about what would happen if they didn't want him around. He could protect them from a distance, if that's what they wanted. But he was afraid of their answer nonetheless.

"Alright. What are your orders?"

"Wha?" he responded intelligently.

Leon put a hand on his throbbing temple, "You have the most experience here, now. That makes you the de facto leader of the forces of light while everyone is scattered like this.".

"Oh… " his intellect kept on shining through.

To be fair, even if he had been accepted, he wasn't expecting such a generous field promotion. As it was, he was scrambling to order his thoughts. He really needed some time to consolidate a proper plan, but for now…

"Well, we really need to wait on the king to finish his mission. He is looking for the Kingdom Key D to seal the door to the realm of darkness. That should cut back on all the heartless that are attacking the worlds. Until then we," He gestured to himself and his party members, "are going to go to as many worlds as we can and lock their keyholes."

Then he looked at each of them in turn, "I want you guys to pair off. Yuffie and Leon will travel to other worlds and help evacuate any worlds that are in danger of vanishing. Cid and Aerith will stay here and work with Merlin to get new arrivals settled. Leon, pick up your jaw, yes I know about Merlin." Sora then looked over to his party members, "I'll introduce you guys the next time we come around. Kairi needs to learn a few basic spells first."

"So, your plan for the most part is to follow the old plan." Cid said matter of factly.

Sora looked at him flatly, "Yes and no. We can't just go charging into the realm of darkness. My body is too weak and none of you are strong enough to withstand the darkness except Kairi. But she needs to get used to using her keyblade. So, in essence, we are on a prolonged training trip while the king retrieves the keyblade he needs." he looked out the window just in time for a Soldier heartless to pop out of a corridor of darkness and run down an alleyway, "And, who knows? If I get strong enough, I may be able to close the door by myself. Either way, Let's go lock Traverse Town's keyhole before we go."

He started for the door and was followed by a much recovered Kairi, Donald and Goofy. As they walked along, they noticed a few heartless arriving here and there via corridors of darkness. Kairi moved to take care of them but was stopped by Sora with a shake of his head. They went through the Gizmo Shop again, Kairi shying away from the machinery as though it would suddenly attack her. A prospect that wasn't too ridiculous in retrospect, as one of the machines malfunctioned when they walked by it, spraying Donald with steam and scaring the crap out of everyone else. As they left the Gizmo Shop, Kairi silently promised herself that she would destroy this shop one day.

They climbed the rickety ladder and near the top, Goofy lost his grip and nearly fell before being caught and hauled up by Sora and Donald. Kairi was the last up because, "I'm wearing a skirt, you dolts!", and they all walked to the edge of the building to survey the courtyard. While the other three enjoyed the view, Sora slashed his way through the barricade in front of the town bell with the Kingdom Key. He banished the blade and rang the bell three times.

 **Gong!**

 **Gong!**

 **Gong!**

The low, droning tone reverberated through his body and out into the courtyard. The mural behind the fountain shifted and revealed a keyhole shape that was made up of the mosaic tiles. And of course another large heartless appeared, the Reverse Guard Armor. Kairi groaned in agony.

"Why is that a thing? Did It know we were doing this? Why did it wait? Just… Whyyyyyyy?" She lamented.

Donald and Goofy made for the ladder, but were stopped by Sora, "Don't. I want to test something."

Sora ran for the edge of the roof and—much to their surprise—jumped straight off. He channeled a bit of mana downward to slow his fall, but otherwise landed without incident. He summoned his χ-blade and pointed it up in the air. He gathered about half of his mana into the blade and it sucked the energy in greedily. He staggered slightly, having been wholly unprepared for the thing to suck up his energy so readily. He was actually having to fight it to prevent it from sucking him dry. _Greedy damned thing._ Then he swung downward in a vertical chop. A large burst of multicolored energy shot forth from the blade, vaporizing the heartless in front of him easily enough. Then he dropped to his knee and banished the blade before it drained him any further.

His friends rushed down to him as quickly as they dared, opting to jump off the raised platform at the bottom of the ladder rather than go through the dreaded Gizmo Shop again. As they approached, Sora was beginning to stand back up.

"Gawrsh, you okay Sora?" Goofy asked him. Behind him stood a concerned looking Kairi and Donald who was trying, and failing, to look less concerned than he was.

Sora smiled. They weren't quite the same, but they were still his friends. "I'm fine, guys. Thanks. It just took a lot more out of me than I thought it would." he looked over where the heartless was, "So much for a good yardstick. I hope Riku doesn't mind me using his keyblade until we find him… "

They all chuckled at that for a moment, then Sora motioned Kairi forward toward the keyhole. After he gave her a brief explanation of questionable quality, "Just hold out your keyblade and the rest will come to you.", she pointed her keyblade at the keyhole and waited. Her keyblade began shining and pulsing with power until a beam of light shot out of the end and pierced the keyhole, producing an audible click.

"And that's that; we have a secure base of operations—" Sora was cut off as a Shadow slunk across the ground and into a nearby alleyway. "Okay… _nearly_ secure base of operations.", he amended.

Donald and Goofy chuckled while Kairi groaned at the thought of killing yet more heartless. Sora smiled and led the way to the first district. When they reached it, they were walking through empty streets. But the further they traveled toward the center of the first district, the more people they ran into on the streets. Eventually, they came upon the central courtyard. They noticed immediately that the crowds of refugees were back and that their friends were all standing in front of the Accessory Shop, waiting to see them off.

Everyone they knew—that was on world—was there. Leon, Aerith, Cid and Yuffie were standing off to one side, and on the other was Wakka, Tidus and Selphie. Sora informed Leon and his gang that the keyhole had been locked and there were only a few straggling heartless that would leave just as soon as they figured out that the Heart of the world was locked. Then, while Donald and Goofy conversed with Cid about possible upgrades for the gummi ship, Sora and Kairi spoke with their friends from the Destiny Islands.

"So, any sign of Riku? Or our parents?" Tidus asked, his face looking hopeful.

Sora and Kairi looked at one another for a moment, during which a quick silent conversation was held. They wouldn't draw their friends into a fight that they weren't involved in.

"No… but we aren't giving up yet." Sora answered, his eyes gleaming with confidence.

The island trio looked downcast for a moment before Kairi spoke, "We actually found a few people willing to help us look on different worlds for them." she adopted an easy smile and swallowed that guilty feeling welling up inside of her.

Sora's smile dropped a touch before morphing into something more serious, he hadn't meant to make Kairi lie…

"There's also a chance… ", he looked into each of their eyes, "we could find a way to restore our home. If that happens, everyone that was scattered will reappear there." Kairi smiled even as the trio's eyes widened in wonder.

"Then good luck Sora, Kairi.", Selphie turned her gaze to them each in turn. Tidus nodded enthusiastically and Wakka threw them both a thumbs up.

"We'll be watchin' out around here for anyone else we know. Keep us posted if ya find anything and we'll do the same, ya?" Wakka added.

They both nodded, "Right." Kairi replied. "You got it!" Sora threw out.

"Ready ta go?" Donald asked as he and Goofy stepped over to the group.

Sora nodded "Ready as I'll ever be."

"Let's go!" Kairi shouted as she dashed forward, only turning back slightly to wave to her friends, both new and old.

"Wait up!" Sora shouted as he ran after her.

Donald and Goofy ran to catch up to the rambunctious teens, as they caught their stride Goofy shouted after them, "Hey! Do ya know where yer goin'?"

The teens just laughed as Sora led the way to the gummi ship at the docks with their other party members trailing after them even as they were laughing too.


	3. Chapter 3 - Down the Rabbit Hole

**A/N** **: Wow. It has been a Journey to edit this chapter. It's been done for like two weeks, but I kept getting interrupted every time I sat down to do my editing. But, now it's done and I can move on to the next chapter.**

 **In any case, let the story continue.**

 **Disclaimer: My owner is not a Square Enix. But I do own a yellow writing desk. ~Twinkle twinkle little bat~**

* * *

Chapter 2 - Down the Rabbit Hole

The Highwind was a marvel of gummi engineering. It hosted enough living quarters to comfortably house up to twenty people if they all doubled up and yet it had the flight capabilities of a ship that was half its size. Besides the living quarters there was a command deck, a galley, training room, cargo hold, infirmary, armory and an auxiliary holding bay which held a drop ship. Then there was the ship's firepower, which consisted of two 60mm energy guns and an advanced missile artillery pod that could track and destroy up to seven targets at once.

After Donald set a course for a nearby world, Goofy left with an exhausted Kairi to show her to her room and Sora—who was trying to avoid being alone with anyone—had run off to re-explore the original Highwind before its many modifications, leaving Donald to pilot the ship.

He first explored the galley, which held a single long table in the center of the room. On the far end of the room from the entrance, was a door that led to a fully equipped and stocked kitchen. Next up on his journey, he came across the infirmary. He had never really spent much time in there, mostly due to his ability to use cure every half hour or so in combat. Between that and the sheer amount of potions they had lugged about in the past—future?—the room really had become superfluous.

Next was the armory, where they had taken to storing every weapon they collected in their travels. In his case, they had eventually installed a wall full of hooks to hold the boatload of keychains he had gotten. After reminiscing in the armory and getting pumped about filling it again, he moved on. He skipped over the training room—he would come back later—and walked down the hallway until it opened up to a catwalk that was looking out over the cargo hold. He descended the stairs and began to take stock of what they had.

By the time he had gotten to the last box, he was fairly certain that he had a new theory on how random events occured and that nothing was set in stone. It seemed as though Donald and Goofy were sent off with enough supplies to keep them going for months! Sora wasn't sure if they were expecting trouble this time around or if the King had arranged for it, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. They had enough potions for each of them to carry three of them at all times. Besides that, they had nothing in terms of synthesis materials and they had little to no munny.

His eye twitched a little. After everything he had been through, the battles, the heartbreak, losing friends, all that trouble and he was poor.

Again.

He almost screamed, but he managed to turn it into a sigh.

 _Can't have everything, I guess._

Sora left the cargo hold and decided to poke into the auxiliary holding bay. The room was smaller than the cargo bay, but it didn't need to be big. Inside was a small gummi ship. Goofy had taken to calling it The Falcon in the previous timeline due to its unique shape being made up of flat panels connected by sharp edges that met at all angles. It could seat two and what it lacked in firepower, it made up in speed, maneuverability and stealth. Perfect for scouting out dangerous territories in the ocean between.

In the old timeline, he had always liked coming down here to catch a moment alone—usually after an encounter with a possessed Riku. He had also developed a fondness for the place due to the peace of mind it gave him. It let him know that if it all ever got to be too much, if he ever felt that he had to leave, he could just take the ship and go.

This time around, he didn't need that reassurance. If he ever needed to leave, he could just use his keyblade glider—not that he _would_ , but the thought helped. He gave the small ship a pat and moved on. The only thing he hated about the room was that the only other entrance was a ladder that led back up to the main hallway just before the stairs to the command deck. At the top of the ladder, he caught a glimpse of Goofy going up the stairs to the command deck. Sora stared after him for a moment before moving on towards the training room.

He wasn't ready for the awkwardness of _that_ conversation. How do you even build a friendship from that perspective? He could just see it now; _Oh, hey there. I already know everything about you two—some of which you don't even know yet—but go ahead and ask me anything you would like to know about myself, and I'll answer. Trust me, we'll be best pals again in no time!_

Yep, that would go over _really_ well.

He huffed a sigh and sat himself down in the training room. He really needed to get a handle on what he was able to do. He began breathing rhythmically until his heart was calm and his mind was clear of all stray thoughts. Unhindered by his musings, he turned his attention inward toward his mana pool. When he had set off all those years ago, his mana pool had been a pitiful thing. He could only let off two or three fireballs before it was all used up, then he had to wait for several hours before he could cast again.

This go around, it was a completely different story. His usual lake of power was gone and in its place he felt a mighty river of mana, just waiting for him to will it into action. Immediately, his next course of action presented itself to him. Sure, he could use magic with all this power—and he had done—but he had also noticed that he was wasting mana left and right on the simplest of spells. Thinking back on it, those fireballs had used more mana than he would have cared to admit. He needed some regulation on his mana. Unsure of what to expect, he carefully grasped a small portion of the river and used it to begin reconstructing his mana matrices. He had used them extensively, once he had learned them, to regulate his reserves when they were smaller. He hoped they would do the job here as well.

He spun the tendrils of mana into a series of thin tubes, layering them and weaving them in such a way that they could still be connected to his river of mana. This would be the replenishing system for the matrix once finished. It took a few minutes of hard work, but the effort produced results as he completed the first step to creating a mana matrix. He waited a few moments and when everything seemed stable, he moved on…

Only for the whole thing to unravel and fade away into nothing. His eyes blinked open.

 _What?_

He sat there in confusion for a few minutes, trying to figure out what he did wrong. He hadn't lost concentration on it, maybe he didn't use enough mana? He pushed the thoughts from his head and began again. And again, after several minutes of work, it faded the second he moved to the next step.

Sora opened his eyes again and flopped onto his back. For all his effort, all he got was a grumbling stomach and a shirt drenched in sweat. He shook his head at the ceiling and admitted the inevitable to himself.

 _I've got a long night ahead of me…_

* * *

Donald had been a bit prickly since Sora told them his story. The king had ordered he and Goofy to find the bearer of the keyblade and to stick with them, but he was sure that the king had not accounted for there being two keyblade users or for one of them to—allegedly—be from the future.

It's not that he didn't believe Sora, his knowledge about everyone seemed too complete for some random island kid that had dreamed of magic and adventure. And his eyes, they had a firmness to them that was lined with a kind of weary sorrow. Sometimes it seemed as though he had seen things that would beggar belief.

But between the king's orders and Sora being the new 'de facto leader of the light', as Leon had put it, Donald wasn't sure what to think anymore. He continued to absently steer the ship towards their destination for a good hour or so as he was lost in his thoughts. Eventually his musings were brushed away by the sounds of Goofy ascending the stairs to the command deck.

They didn't speak at first. They did not have to. Years of friendship and working together allowed for an easy and comfortable silence to descend between the two. Eventually Donald fell back into his musing only to be pulled out of it by Goofy.

"I think he's a good kid."

Donald blinked a few times and looked over at his long time friend, who's face had adopted an easy smile.

"Whaddya mean?" Donald quirked his eyebrow.

"What I mean is that he could've avoided tellin' us about that there time travelin' stuff, but he did." Goofy nodded to himself as his smile grew. "Whatever his reasons, he was still honest with us. I think his heart's in the right place."

"Ya think we can trust him?" Donald asked incredulously.

"Maybe not yet, but I stand by what I said. He seems like a good kid." Goofy crossed his arms and looked back out the domed window.

"If ya say so, Goofy. But I'm watchin' em." Donald gave a nod of finality.

Goofy nodded in acknowledgment and decided to change the subject. He gestured to the navigation panel. "How long 'til we're there?"

Donald, grateful for the change in topic, tapped the panel a few times until an info screen popped up. "A few minutes. We'll orbit da world while we get some shut eye."

Goofy nodded again, "I'm gonna hit the hay then…. G'night Donald."

"Night." Donald called after his retreating form. Then he went back to his musing.

Another half hour went by and the ship had finally arrived at their destination, a world full of high stone buildings with a lot of smoke from steam powered machinery. Donald gently guided the ship into orbit and set the ship to hold itself there.

As he walked off to his room, he had finally reached his conclusion.

Sure, he could believe that Sora was a good kid. But that did not mean he needed to trust him. They needed to find the king and figure out which keyblade wielder they were supposed to be following.

* * *

The next morning, Sora sat across from Kairi at the table in the galley with his head propped up on his hand. He had been dozing on and off since he had dragged himself off the floor in the training room where he fell asleep last night.

Kairi had walked into the galley a few minutes ago to get some food, only to see the half asleep teen trying to cobble together some kind of breakfast. She had taken pity on him and pushed him into his current seat while she raided the pantry. Now armed with cereal, they had since been sitting in silence.

Then Sora's head slipped off his hand and hit the table.

"Owwwww…."

"That's what you get for staying up late, you bum." Kairi poked at him with a fond smile. Secretly, she was relieved that he was still somewhat the same Sora that she knew. Time travel or no.

"Mmm mmm mmm m mmmph…" Sora mumbled into the table.

"What?" Kairi giggled.

He turned his head to the side, "I stayed up to train… "

Kairi quirked an eyebrow. She didn't understand why _he_ of all people would need to train. In her opinion, he was plenty strong enough. She told him as much while he peeled his face off the table.

"Well… yeah. I'm strong. But I could be better. And I'll need to be." He explained as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and started in on his cereal.

"You mean you're not strong enough now?" She asked, confused by his lack of detail.

Sora finished chewing a bite of his cereal before responding, "There's always someone stronger. To beat the guy that caused our island to fade, I need to get a whole lot stronger."

Kairi had no idea how to respond to that, so she grunted and took a bite of her cereal. They ate for a few moments in silence while Kairi worked up to asking the question that had been sticking with her since Sora's big reveal.

"I wasn't with you for this the first time around, was I?" She had phrased it like a question but, by her tone, she was just looking for confirmation.

Sora's gaze flicked up to her briefly, then he set his spoon back into his bowl and pushed it aside. He figured that his appetite would be gone soon enough anyway.

He took a large breath in and then out, "No… The first time around, your heart was pulled from your body by a wave of darkness. It happened to latch on to the lightest thing on the island at the time; My heart.", his face gained a somber look.

And there it was. Kairi watched as the Sora she knew was buried underneath this… other person. He may have been the same in some aspects, but the lighter, happier kid she knew was gone. Replaced by someone who hid a lot of remorse under his resolve. What surprised her most though, was how quickly the change in demeanor had come over him. It was practically instantaneous.

"Oh… " she had no idea what to think of that.

Sora took that as a sign that he should start explaining, "I wanted you to have more time to train. In the other timeline, you had only just finished your keyblade training when… " his voice tapered off. He hadn't meant to say _that_ much. It was too late, Kairi had already connected a few dots.

Kairi's voice was halted and hesitant, "I… I didn't—make it… did I?"

Sora clasped his hands together and fidgeted uncomfortably. After all, how do you tell one of your oldest friends that they had, in essence, died? When he answered, his eyes seemed to be looking at everything _but_ her.

"...No."

They lapsed into silence again, both regretting having said anything at all. That was how Donald and Goofy found them moments later; Sora with his hands fisted, Kairi playing absently with her food and each looking at the table in mutual regret.

"Uh… everythin' okay?", Goofy asked as he and Donald stepped into the room.

Sora continued looking at the table, letting Kairi decide how she wanted to answer, "Sora was just… answering a few questions for me… "

That piqued Donald's interest, "Questions about da future?"

Sora glanced at Kairi, then at Donald's expecting expression. Unable to meet either of their gazes, he opted to look at the table again. His only answer was a sharp nod. He didn't trust himself to speak.

Donald nodded slowly, "Ah… "

Goofy looked around at his three party members, two of whom were in a depressed funk and the other was uncomfortable with the presence of the first two. The mood in the room was so dark, he was sure it would not have been any different if he closed his eyes.

Goofy narrowed his eyes and took on a stern demeanor, "Alright! Now see here, if yer gonna travel together, ya've gotta smile! This here ship is powered by smiles!"

Sora, Kairi and Donald were staring at him like he had just grew two extra heads. That lasted for a few moments until one by one, they began to crack.

Kairi's stunned expression slowly melted into a puckered grin as she tried to hold back her laughter. Sora was just a little better at holding back the floodgates, but it was Donald who cracked first.

"Ahahahahahaaa!" He belted out in his typical gargled laughter.

And like a chain whose weak link was broken, Sora and Kairi soon followed until Goofy broke his stern facade and started guffawing along with them.

It took a few moments for them to stop—Sora and Donald had started making silly faces sometime during the flood of laughter—but when they did, the mood in the room had become brighter and was much improved.

"Alright—hehe—we'll try to smile—heh—more often, right Sora?" Kairi said between her occasional laughter.

Sora nodded and crossed his arms behind his head, "Right!"

Goofy nodded in satisfaction, "Donald?"

Donald rolled his eyes and ground out his response, "Yeah yeah… more smilin'…"

Goofy shot Donald a mock glare, but then laughed it off. He figured that was the best he was going to get.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I need to clean my clothes and take a shower before we go on our first adventure." Sora said as he left the room.

"There's a laundry room in this place?" Kairi asked after him as she hurriedly scrambled from her seat. They walked off down the hallway while Sora explained cleaning magic to her.

Donald and Goofy watched the teens walk off. They were somewhat amazed at how quickly their moods had turned around, not that either of them would have complained.

"Awwww, phooey!", Donald exclaimed, "They forgot ta clean up their dishes!"

Goofy shook his head and pointed a thumb at himself, "I've got it covered, you just go 'n get ready so we can land."

Donald huffed and left for his room while Goofy cleaned up after the forgetful teens. It was looking like it was going to be a long day.

* * *

"I don't remember this place… " Sora commented.

"It's a world you've never been to?" Kairi asked.

Sora shrugged in response, "There are plenty of worlds I've never been to. I had just assumed that we would only be visiting the ones I've been to in the past."

"Welp, there's no reason to think that the past is set in stone. Could be that we'll visit lotsa places ya've never been before." Goofy drawled, his voice tinged with innocent optimism.

"Weather you've been here or not, it doesn't make this walk any better." Donald snipped, "I didn't think I landed us this far away… "

They had been walking towards the tall buildings in the distance for about three hours now and they were beginning to wonder if the buildings were bigger and further away than they seemed.

Donald had landed the ship in a forest clearing a good distance from the city, and they had activated the cloaking tech that Cid had installed for them. Sora, not wanting to misplace the ship, placed a mana trace on the hatch to find it later. Then, He and Goofy had led the party through the woods until they came across a gravel road that seemed to lead towards the city in the distance. They had yet to see anyone else on the road, which they thought was strange when they considered how many people must travel to and from such a big city.

Every hour or so they would stop and rest for a moment while they assessed weather they were getting nearer to the buildings. They weren't. No matter how long or how far they walked, the city never appeared to get any closer. When midday came and went, they were all just a little fed up with the seemingly uncrossable distance.

"This is stupid!" Donald yelled.

"I know! Why aren't we there yet?", Kairi looked to Sora, "Are those buildings really that far away?"

Sora shrugged and kept trudging along, "We must have come across a barrier that was set up by the world's heart. That tends to happen when a keyblade wielder comes to a world. The world heart takes them towards where they're needed.", then he slouched over, "It's just taking _for-e-verrr_ … "

This caused a discussion about what kind of problem there could be to keep them out in the countryside like this, which Sora didn't join. Instead he was trying to remember if he had ever been to this world before. The only time he could remember seeing a city like this one was after escaping Hook's ship with Peter and Wendy, it even had the large clock tower which made it look like… London? He couldn't remember what the city was called… This place, though, held a touch of familiarity to him, but he couldn't pin down why it did.

"Hey! There's a gate!" Donald shouted as he ran towards it, Kairi not far behind.

"Maybe we can get directions?", Goofy wondered aloud as he wandered after Donald.

Sora, broken away from his thoughts, just shrugged again and walked alongside Goofy. Donald and Kairi were stood in front of the gate when they caught up with them, and for good reason. They were standing, mouths agape, marveling at the magnificence of a sprawling estate that was behind the gates.

The mansion itself was three stories tall and was made of different types of marble and stone that was accented with dark wood, giving the whole building a regal bearing even as the architecture made it look like it contained several odd layers and terraces. Surrounding the building were several beautifully maintained gardens that were lined with precisely trimmed hedges. Directly in front of the magnificent home was a finely cobbled courtyard that connected to a large and seemingly well equipped stables that were adjacent to the building. The whole estate was enclosed by a segmented wrought iron fence that was connected by slim stone pillars. And snaking its way down the immaculately kept lawn, was a cobbled road that led right up to the large gate. The gates themselves were also wrought iron, shaped into an intricate floral design and supported by stone pillars that were twice again as thick as the other stone pillars.

"Yep. This is where we're needed." Sora quipped as he took in the beautiful sight.

"C'mon! Let's go in!" Donald grabbed ahold of one of the gates and heaved it open.

Sora tapped Kairi on the shoulder to catch her attention from the building and they followed Goofy through the opening. Once they were all through, Donald pushed the gate shut once more and then did a few hop-steps to catch up with the group. As they walked along, Kairi caught a glimpse of someone slipping into the stables in the corner of her eye, but when she turned her head to look, no one was there.

Sora caught her attention again, "It's a kid, like us. A boy, I think."

Kairi looked at him for a moment, wondering how he knew that, then snapped her attention back to the stables, hoping to catch another glimpse of the boy within. She only got to look for a moment more before she heard the harsh rapping of knuckles on a door.

 **Knock-knock!**

The sound seemed to pierce through the serenity of their surroundings, making it seem sharper than it really was. Despite the loudness of the knock, they were left waiting for some time. They waited until they heard the hollow clicks of several locks being undone. Then the door opened, revealing a small man in his twilight years. He wore a victorian era suit and his shoulder length grey hair was slicked back, giving him a prim and proper appearance. He inspected each of them in turn for a few seconds.

When he spoke, it was in a rich tone that carried a crisp accent, "Are you from the constabulary?"

"Uhhh… ", Sora's words stuck in his throat.

"Oh!", the man opened the door and waved them in, "How rude of me, please come in! Ah, my Lord Kingsleigh is busy with the Lady at the moment, but I can show you to the gardens while you wait."

They all looked at each other in confusion before quickly hustling through the open door. The manservant closed the door behind them and showed them through the lavishly equipped home. The hallways were decorated with several objects from different exotic places; silk tapestries, carvings and pottery of all shapes and sizes. All the way through the many winding halls and corridors, the manservant kept up a running commentary on how some girl went missing from the mansion and that the lord and lady have been frantic to see her return. Finally, after a few minutes of walking, the man led them through a set of glass doors and into a large garden.

He held the doors open yet again for them. "I'll be back shortly with my lord, but please feel free to take a look around the gardens.", then he closed the doors and left them be. They watched his figure move off down the hall before they each looked at each other, their feelings written plainly on their faces.

"Gawrsh, did he think we were constables?" Goofy scratched his head in confusion.

"Well, it's too late ta fix it… " Donald replied.

Kairi looked between the two worriedly, "Does that mean we're lying?"

Sora shook his head, "No. But it does mean that we need to figure out what we're doing here."

The other three nodded in response and turned to look at their surroundings. What they saw gave them pause. The gardens were extensive, with intricately cut hedges and flowerbeds placed around trees and statues that were scattered between the loosely cobbled walkways. The whole garden went on for hundreds of feet until it met with a small stream. Over the stream, there was a bridge that connected one path in the garden to the other side, which held a field of flowers that surrounded a large oak tree on a hill.

"Uhh… Where do ya think we should start?" Goofy asked, eyes wide at the rather large area they had to look through.

Sora sweatdropped, "Erm… Everywhere?"

Donald shot him a deadpan look while Kairi laughed nervously. Goofy, however, walked off towards one of the statues to their right. Sora shrugged and walked towards a set of hedges that were cut to resemble several animals. Donald trod over towards the left side of the garden while mumbling under his breath about "Stupid, vague orders." Seeing the others looking around, Kairi shook off her nervous jitters and tentatively made her way towards the oak on the other side of the bridge.

The going was slow, with nothing of note really standing out to any of them. As far as they could tell, they were gate crashing in the garden of a beautiful mansion while impersonating law enforcement in a world they didn't belong to. It wasn't until a few minutes later when they all heard Goofy's cry of surprise that they began to think they might be getting somewhere.

Goofy had been looking through a section of the garden that was lined with different statues of outlandish creatures when one of the statues attacked him after he walked by. His only warning was the sound of grinding stone behind him. He gave a shout of alarm before diving to the ground. He felt the swipe pass over his head and he heard the swish of the air it displaced. He rolled to his feet and unslung his shield to deflect the next strike. The statue, a grotesque mixture of spikes and wolf heads in the shape of a person, slashed diagonally across Goofy's shield. Goofy tensed under the jarring pressure of the blow, sparks flying from his shield. The attack left the animated statue off balance. Seeing an opportunity, Goofy smashed his shield into the statue's exposed back.

Sora and Donald were moving the second they heard Goofy call out. Donald got there first with a spell already charged at his fingertips. When he saw Goofy force the animated statue away from himself, he let fly a massive lightning bolt that stunned the stone menace. Then Sora came skidding around a hedge, Kingdom Key in hand.

Sora wasted no time once he saw the stunned statue, pointing his keyblade at it and casting purify. The results were as instant as they were chaotic. A Shadow heartless holding a blue ribbon burst forth from the now immobile statue and darted towards Donald and Sora. Sora spied the blue ribbon first and shouted, "Wait!", causing Donald to let his next spell fizzle out.

"That ribbon could be that girl's! Catch it!" Sora explained. Then both he and Donald dove to capture the Shadow, but it slipped away, leaving them in lying a heap on the path. They quickly untangled themselves and stood apart from one another.

"Hey! Watch it!" Donald shook his fist in Sora's direction.

"Sorry…", Sora shrugged and brushed down the front of his shirt, then he saw the shade disappear around a hedge, "Aw hell, it's getting away!" he took off in a dead sprint after the heartless, with an annoyed Donald in tow and Goofy not far behind.

For the next few minutes, the heartless led the trio on a merry chase around the gardens. Any time it was cornered, it would slink under a hedge or possess another statue—only to be purified from it by Sora. It even tried hiding in the flower beds a few times, but it just couldn't shake its pursuers. Finally, in a desperate bid, it ran across the bridge towards the big oak tree.

Sora, Donald and Goofy were winded by the time they had caught up to the fleeing creature. They stopped a short distance away from the tree, then they watched as it crawled into a hole at the base of the trunk and seemingly disappeared again.

"Well… that could'a gone better." Goofy looked over at the other two; they were each giving him looks that said 'you think?'.

Sora looked around and noticed something else, "Where the hell is Kairi?"

The other two looked around the hill, confused. They had seen her come over here when they had all split up to look around. And they weren't exactly quiet while they were chasing around that heartless.

"Maybe… ", Goofy began as he gestured towards the hole in the trunk of the tree, "Maybe she went in there?"

Donald looked at him skeptically, "You _really_ think she would'a gone down there?"

Sora dragged a hand down his face and let out a groan. It was Kairi's nature to be curious, he could see her crawling down that hole in a heartbeat. "Of course she went down the damned hole… " he mumbled to himself, " Well, at least she knows which end of her keyblade to point at any enemies… "

He walked over and knelt down in front of the hole. It was dark, but it seemed to lead deeper than one would first expect. He held up a hand and conjured a fireball to help him see. Now illuminated, he could see that the hole definitely led somewhere and it was big enough for them all to crawl through.

He looked over his shoulder at his party members, "Alright. This is why we're here, so now we can find _both_ missing girls… " He shook his head and started shuffling down the tunnel, he soon heard Donald and Goofy following him.

They crawled in a short way, then they were suddenly falling. They fell through a completely vertical shaft, which had the most random assortment of objects stuck to its walls. There were tables, beds, dishes, books… Every household item that one might find in a typical home was plastered to the walls or hung off of it at odd angles. Some of it seemed to be falling along with them, causing them to be pelted with more than a few items on the ride down. Finally, they crashed through the bottom of the cavern and into the vaulted ceiling of a room. Sora turned himself over and had enough time to register that he was sat upside down before they were all deposited on the floor in an undignified heap.

Sora extricated himself from the pile with a groan of pain—Goofy had landed with his elbow in Sora's gut—and he looked around the room they were in while he caught his wind. The walls were unadorned, except for several doors of different sizes. The light in the room was muted, a result of being lit by a few candles on a chandelier. The only other thing in the room, was a table in the center that had a bottle of clear, pink liquid in it.

He paused.

He had seen liquid like that before, but he wasn't sure where. It had been such a long time ago since he had seen it, he was scrambling desperately for the memories. While Sora was stuck staring at the bottle of liquid, Donald and Goofy were exploring the room. They started trying to open doors, with mixed results. Some were locked, others would open to a brick wall or were completely fake. The most interesting of the bunch, however, were the doors whose knobs would move to avoid being touched. Then there was the large red door that had opened, only to swallow itself into its own opening. After Donald backed away from _that_ particular door, Goofy got their attention.

"Uhh, hey fellas! This one's already open."

Sora broke away from his trance and glanced over towards the indicated door… Well, maybe calling it a door was a bit much. It was barely big enough for someone to stick their head through it, kind of like a doggie door. Sora swallowed a dry lump of his nerves and the feeling sank into his stomach like a stone. He was having some major deja vous, and if his initial feelings about their situation were correct, they were about to have _the worst_ headaches.

"Damn it… ", Sora snatched the bottle and motioned for the others to gather 'round, "Take a drink of this—not much—just a sip. It'll get us out of here."

"Or it could be poisonous and kill us… " Donald crossed his arms and stepped back.

Sora sighed, he already felt that headache coming on. He took the bottle, unstoppered it and took a swig. The effects were immediate. He shrank down to about an eighth of his size, just barely having time to stopper the bottle and pass it to Goofy while he shrunk. The only downside was that his clothes _did not_ shrink with him. This left him with burning cheeks, awkwardly holding onto his shirt to preserve his dignity while Donald and Goofy were having a chuckle at his predicament.

Once Sora got a handle on keeping himself covered, he put up a reflective barrier around his pile of clothes. This left Donald and Goofy looking at a mirrored dome and gave Sora a chance to shrink his clothes with a spell. When he dropped the barrier, he saw his party members eyeing the bottle. He rolled his eyes, "Look, if I'm right about where we are, then we really need to get a move on.", he gestured to himself, "It didn't kill me, so just drink it… "

Goofy shrugged, took a tentative sip, and instantly shot down to Sora's height. Luckily Donald had enough presence of mind to snatch the bottle, which he then took a sip from. When they were all the proper size, and properly clothed, they turned their attention to the small door that was open. It was bigger now, just big enough to squeeze through.

Sora poked his head through the door before stepping through. They were in a cemetery—which was normal enough—only it was huge. Not in the sprawling and spread out kind of way, but in scale. Everything looked like it was made for giants. And everything that was supposed to be small was—as a consequence of their resizing—huge as well.

There were flowers that were taller than them, mushrooms the size of beds, the grass was chest height or taller in some places. All in all, it was a very surreal experience for Donald and Goofy once they stepped out. For Sora, this was all a strange walk down memory lane.

"Let's go.", Sora walked towards the massive gate of the cemetery, Donald and Goofy following, "Kairi can't have gotten far."

* * *

 **Thwack!**

Kairi smacked her head on the wooden beam again. She couldn't believe that she had gotten herself into this situation. All she had meant to do was check out the hole. She had only crawled in a short way before she had fallen down the tunnel full of random things. Then when she finally stopped falling, she couldn't get back because the floor sealed itself back up!

From there it had all spiraled out of control. She had gotten out of the room by shrinking—she wound up using one of her socks as a dress—and into the cemetery outside easily enough, but then she had gotten lost in the forests beyond. Shortly afterward she met a floating tabby cat that was grey with aqua stripes. It introduced itself as the Cheshire Cat and gave her something called upelkuchen, causing her to grow to her normal size.

Lucky? She had thought so too. At least, until she realized that her sock dress hadn't grown with her. This prompted the cat to conjure her some clothing and send her on her way. Then she was arrested shortly afterward by a man named Stayne who was dressed in all black and had a scar stemming from a heart shaped eyepatch that he wore on his face.

He had been accompanied by several… cards? Heartless, maybe? She wasn't sure what they were, but they wore red sectioned armor that made them look like living playing cards. They had lashed her to the back of something they called a Bandersnatch, and dragged her off to a large castle.

The castle itself was beautiful. It had tall white towers with red roofs, some of which were connected by arched walkways which, when combined with their unique architecture, looked like hearts. The most striking thing she had seen before being ushered through a set of huge doors was a large black dragon which was curled around the main tower of the castle.

The rest passed in a bur of hallways, accusations and questions that she had no answers for, followed by a swift imprisonment in the moderately furnished cell that she was in. It didn't take long for panic to set in. The door to her prison had barely closed before she had began to scream herself raw, begging to be let out, that she didn't do anything and didn't know anything. Eventually, she settled down into a corner to wait until she was let go.

Then, about an hour later, a girl that was a few years younger than her was shoved into the room with her. She wore a blue dress, a white apron covering the front, white knee high socks, and small black shoes with silver buckles. Her golden blond hair ran to the small of her back and had a black headband securing it in place. Her facial features were dainty, a small button nose above a set of petite lips on a pointed chin. Her eyes were a beautiful cerulean blue, they held a touch of mischief and looked like they were used to smiling.

At first they were both quiet, but soon enough they got to talking. Through the girl, Kairi learned that they were in a place called Wonderland. Together they quickly figured out that neither of them knew what was going on and after a few minutes of trying to pool their info, they decided that they shouldn't stick around long enough to find out. Especially when they considered how irrationally hostile the Queen seemed to be. This eventually led Kairi to her current activity; banging her head against a wooden pillar in the corner of the room while she racked her brains for an escape plan. She was the older girl, afterall, and that made her in charge of the fighting.

She already figured that she could just cut through the door to their shared cell with Destiny's Embrace, but after that she was at a loss. Neither of them knew the layout of the castle, even though the younger girl had reassured her that she could find a way back to the cemetery if they could just escape the castle and its surrounding town. And that was where she was stuck.

 **Thump**

"Aaaagggghhhhh….", she rubbed her slightly red forehead, "I'm stumped… what do you think?"

The blond girl was sitting on the bed with her hand on her chin, "I think our best chance will be to wait until nightfall for our escape."

"Ohhhh….my first adventure and I'm basically a damsel?", Kairi shook her head in dismay, this wasn't going how she planned at all.

"Hmmm… not quite a damsel, but an opportunist. You yourself admitted that between the two of us, we are outnumbered and we lack the skills necessary to make up for the deficit."

Kairi sighed, she could not fault the other girl's logic, but it was still annoying to do _nothing_ , "Fine… ", she paused a moment before continuing, "I'm Kairi."

The blonde looked at her questioningly, "My name is Alice?"

Kairi smiled and held out her hand, "Pleasure to meet you Alice."

The girl—Alice—took her hand gently and gave it the slightest shake.

"Well, if we're going to wait until night, maybe Sora and the others will catch up with us. They would make a great distraction for us to escape.", Kairi mused aloud as she looked out of their small, barred window.

"This So-ra, he is a friend of yours?" Alice asked, her head tilted in curiosity.

"Yeah," Kairi replied fondly, "I've known him since we were little… " She wrapped her arms around herself and resumed her vigil from the window, "I wonder what he's doing now?" she whispered softly to herself. She pondered this a moment before severing that line of thought. Trying to figure out what he was up to based on what she knew of him was useless when she remembered the whole time traveling thing. So she decided to do something else to pass the time.

"So, Alice, tell me a bit about yourself."

Alice looked at her questioningly, "Well…"

* * *

"This! Place! Suuuuucccckkkksssss!", Donald screamed as they ran through the oversized forest.

"How was I supposed to know that they'd try to kill us?", Sora shouted over his shoulder, just as another group of thorns shot over their heads.

"Ya said ya've been here before!" Goofy interjected after jumping over another root in his way.

"Yeah, well!", Sora dove out of the way of a branch that tried to hit him, "It's a little different than I remember!"

Almost immediately after leaving the cemetery, the trio had come under attack from several flowers. At first, Sora had thought that they would be helpful, maybe even give them directions or tell them if they had seen Kairi recently. They had been kind the first time around, right? Boy, had he been wrong. They wound up getting several barrages of thorns shot at them as the forest seemed to turn against them, tripping them up with roots and vines while more plants waited in ambush. As far as Sora could tell, the chase had been going on for about an hour or so.

As they ran on, and away from the plethora of flora chasing them, they failed to notice that the woods were becoming less lively. There were fewer and fewer leaves on the trees, and the plants and foliage were slowly being replaced by deadfall and thick brambles that choked the forest floor.

"Come on! We can lose them in there!", Sora pointed towards a large set of dead bushes nestled between two mile high trees in front of them. Neither Donald or Goofy argued as they sprinted through the brush, both just hoping that this would work. They all ran deeper into the bushes, unaware that the plants had stopped as though they had hit a wall. After a few minutes, they emerged from the other side and stopped to catch their breath.

Sora was doubled over, sides heaving as he tried to rein in his frantically beating heart. Donald was gasping as he lay on his back, and Goofy had his arms crossed behind his head to help his breathing. A few minutes went by before they finally caught their wind and saw that they indeed had not been followed.

"Yes! We lost them!", Sora pumped his fist in victory.

Then Donald gave him a high five, "Yeah! We lost 'em!"

"Uh, guys, I think you're celebratin' a bit too early…", Goofy called over his shoulder to them then pointed where he had been looking, "Look."

They both stopped a moment at looked where Goofy had pointed. What they saw caused their laughter and celebration to die out immediately. All around them were the scorched remains of a large forest, much like the one they had just sprinted through, which surrounded the burnt out shell of a giant sized town. "Do you remember this place?", Donald asked, his eyes still glued to the carnage. Sora was barely any better as he swallowed a lump in his throat and shook his head, "No… but we should check for survivors."

The walk to the town had been a chore as they trudged through waist deep ash and navigated around the gigantic remains of charred trees. Then they got to the town and it all became much worse. They were stopped short of entering because of what they encountered. It was a very large, soot stained skeleton that was half buried in ash. And it wasn't the only one they found. Sora shuddered in revulsion.

"What could have done this?" Sora mumbled as he looked at the ruined buildings that were little better than firewood at this point.

"What had nothing to do with this!", a young voice called out loudly from above, startling the trio and causing them to group up, back to back.

"He is a gentleman, and a scholar! He has _much_ better things to do than burn down hamlets!", the same voice called out from a different place.

Sora looked around at the giant buildings, trying to catch a glimpse of the speaker, but was having no such luck. "Who are you!? Did you do this!?"

"Oh no! This will never do! We cannot have a proper conversation with you like that… People today need to have these types of conversations face to face!"

"Where are you?" Donald shouted, tired of the nonsense.

"Right here, or maybe there? It's a matter of perspective.", A boy who—despite being the size of a giant—seemed no less than two years younger than Sora stepped around the corner of a building. And an odd boy he was. His hair was an assortment of curly red hair which was in stark contrast with his snow white skin. His eyelids were smudged with maroon makeup and his irises were a striking color of green, giving his eyes a manic gleam. His lips were painted red, and they were stretched into a sly grin, as though he knew something they did not.

Sora couldn't remember meeting the strange boy before them. It had been years since he had been to Wonderland, but then again _this_ Wonderland was already different than he remembered. Everything in _this_ Wonderland was much darker and seemed to be more hostile, not to mention the fact that they had yet to run into _any_ Heartless, let alone the one they were trying to capture. Maybe the boy was just another version of someone he had met before? Was that a thing, he wondered? He pushed the thought aside and took a small step forward, "Who are you?"

The large boy tilted his head in consideration as if genuinely thinking about who he was, "Who am I…", he began slowly, "I am who I am and I am who I am not.", he began waving his arms around as he moved ever so closer to them, "I wander the land of under seeking allies for the plunder. Green, blue and red, all is dead. Unraveling minds will lead you to find that I am who I am. I am no butcher, not a baker, nor some… **thrice damned candlestick maker!** ", his eyes flashed yellow for a moment before he seemed to become calm again, "I am me, as mad a hatter there's ever been, the Mad Hatter, at your service!", he finished with a flourish while looking down at them.

Donald turned his head slightly in Sora's direction—just enough that he could still keep the strange hatter-boy in his sights—and his voice took on a low tone, "What did he just say?"

Sora leaned closer to Donald, his voice becoming a conspiratorial whisper, "Not a damned clue… "

"Do ya think we should ask for his help?" Goofy asked from behind the two. Unfortunately he had spoken just a touch too loudly, catching the larger Hatter's attention.

"The wind blows round and round, ask and it shall be found, help is abound." the hatter replied cryptically.

"Riiiiight. Look, have you seen a girl about my age with red hair?" Sora asked as he rubbed his temples, his headache had finally arrived.

Hatter paced back and forth in front of them a few times, unintentionally kicking up small clouds of ash and causing the small trio to cough and gasp for air while he was muttering to himself. This went on for a few moments until he stopped suddenly and held up a finger, "To play the game, all colors are fair." He swiveled to face them, "However, choose red and one must despair. All will be bad, the false queen becomes mad. In her castle, your girl must be!"

This provoked a round of head scratching from the trio as they tried to decipher the Mad Hatter's ravings. Sora only understood just a bit more than Donald or Goofy seemed to, and he had to admit that it was only due to having just a bit more context about their situation. Obviously he was talking about the Queen of Hearts and her castle. Did the queen have a castle last time? He figured it probably wasn't as important to him in the last timeline. In any case, he knew that the queen loved red and therefore probably had Kairi arrested for having red hair or something along those lines. But how had the kid known that she had red hair at all? He couldn't come up with a reason why the queen would be mad, besides just being an angry person in general, but he figured that maybe that was where the heartless came in… Or maybe Maleficent?

"I can take you to the castle, but first we must get you all dressed properly and… ", Hatter looked down at his timepiece, "Oh yes, it's time for a spot of tea."

The trio really didn't have time to protest before being scooped up by the Mad Hatter and ferried away from the decimated remains of the hamlet. As Hatter walked, the trio watched the scenery roll by until a large windmill came into view. It was stood on a slight hill with fog surrounding it and in front of it was, most peculiarly, a long table made up of several other tables underneath a stained white tablecloth. The table was a mess. Crockery littered the table, all of it in different states of breakage or upheaval. Surrounding the table were about two dozen chairs, each one was mismatched and no two looked remotely alike. Occupying one chair was a rabbit and in another, a mouse.

Hatter deposited the three shrunken warriors of light onto the cluttered table and began mixing several ingredients that were strewn about. Sora opened his mouth to introduce himself and his friends, but has shushed by the manic child, "Introductions can wait for the rain to stop." Sora's eye twitched and he rubbed his throbbing temple while they all watched the lunatic frantically throw several questionable looking things into an empty teapot, becoming more and more apprehensive as time wore on. At one point, Sora could have swore that he saw the Hatter plunk what looked like a piece of earwax into the concoction but by the end, he just couldn't have been sure. Mixing finally done, Hatter clapped a lid over the teapot and shook it like mad, causing small amounts of the green liquid to spurt out of the spout with every shake.

The strange boy poured the vile smelling liquid into three smaller teacups, shoved one of them into each of their hands, and giggled manically. "Drink." His smile grew wider while the table's other occupants tried to hold back their laughter. Ignoring the shiver that ran down their collective spines, they each tossed back their respective drinks. The effect was instant. And embarrassing. They grew to their normal sizes, but their clothes? Not so much.

Sora let loose a yelp and covered himself to the best of his abilities as the rabbit and mouse finally burst into wild bouts of laughter. The Hatter was frozen with his hands over his mouth as he stifled a laugh at their expense, when he recovered, he rushed off towards the windmill behind them. When he returned, clothes in hand, the rabbit and the mouse were still laughing hysterically. Sora gratefully took the clothes offered to him and swiftly dressed himself.

Once the trio was clothed—again—and the laughter had ceased, the young Hatter proceeded with the introductions, through which they learned that the rabbit's name was Thackery Earwicket, otherwise known as the March Hare. And that the mouse's name was Mallymkun, also known as the Dormouse. Hatter invited them to sit and they spent the next hour—when they weren't dodging pieces of flying porcelain and leftover food—conversing about recent events.

Sora, much to his surprise, was informed that the world they were in was called Underland. When he asked about the origins of the name 'Wonderland', the Hatter informed him that that was simply what another foolish girl had called Underland in mistake. Then Thackery and Mallymkun told them about the rise of the Red Queen. How she had overthrown her sister—the White Queen—and burned the town of Witzend to the ground. Then she took over the Castle of Hearts, grinding under foot any who dared oppose her. It had been two months since then, and the wrathful rule of the Red Queen was only growing worse with every new decree that was given. During the whole conversation, Sora, Donald and Goofy had stayed quiet and listened to what was being told, only interrupting to clarify one thing or another.

"Okay," Sora began as he pushed away his tea and folded his hands together in front of him, "so how can we help?"

"Oh! You don't need to help, all shall occur as ordained in the Oraculum.", Hatter quipped, his upbeat smile crawling onto his face.

"Aye, what needs doing now, is saving young Alice from the Req Queen! The Frabjous day can't happen without her.", Mallymkun squeaked over the top of her teacup.

Donald's eye twitched slightly and he threw his arms out to either side, "Wait a minute! We were supposed to be finding Kairi, Riku and da king!", he shouted from his place at the table on Goofy's left.

Goofy gave him a placating shrug, "Our to-do list was bound ta grow _sometime_ , Donald… "

Sora chuckled softly and threw a shrug in Donald's direction, "It's gonna get a whole lot bigger before we find Riku _or_ the King. We'll manage."

A saucer was flung between Sora and Goofy, startling them both and causing the wayward Hatter to clap his hands rapidly. The witless hare, who had thrown the offending projectile, then perked up and his eyes became less clouded, "Ya've got to start planning for the breakout, ya do.", he whispered conspiratorially. However the effect of his rare lucid moment was lost as he had been addressing a jelly stain on the tablecloth in front of himself. Suddenly, Hatter stood and beckoned for them to follow. "Come come! We can walk and talk. Make a plan while we find our man!"

As they walked along, Goofy scratched his head, "I thought we were looking for two girls?" his answer came in the form of an oddly bright smile from the Hatter, which only grew wider as they all planned their raid on the castle dungeons.

They walked and talked for what seemed like hours. They came up with several plans, some of which weren't _complete_ nonsense. One of the plans that they had discarded early on had been presented by Thackory, who had insisted that the hypnotic properties of ballerina printed tea cozies was enough to topple the aristocracy. By the time they had came upon a cliff that looked over the Castle of Hearts, they had unknowingly gained a following. Several of the denizens of the surrounding forests had decided to lend their aid. Unfortunately the additional help had muddied up the plan they had constructed forcing them to make a new strategy.

By the time they had gone over the plan and decided on a course of action, the sun was low in the sky and a little over an hour of daylight was left. Satisfied that they finally had a workable plan, they forced Sora to brief the crowd of creatures that were lending their support, "But I don't like public speaking! It makes me nervous!", his protests went unheard.

Properly briefed, or as briefed as a nervous and halting speech from a young man could make them, the allied animals and creatures scattered to their places. Sora, Donald and Goofy wished Mallymkun luck before sending her off, then they saw off the Hatter and Thackeray as they went to their position.

All that was left was to wait for the signal once darkness fell. Sora couldn't help but find the irony in the warriors of light using the darkness to their advantage. As he Donald and Goofy watched the sun go down, he let out a soft chuckle. His friends looked at him, the question evident in their expressions. He waved them off. They wouldn't appreciate that kind of humor. Not yet at least.

* * *

Kairi and Alice were just about ready to make their escape, they had tied together all the fabrics in the room to make a rope to help them reach the gardens about thirty feet below the window, they would have to jump the last ten, but it was better than nothing in Kairi's opinion. They had decided against trying to navigate through the castle. They didn't want to risk being recaptured when they got lost in one of the many hallways.

Now they were biding their time, hoping for an opportunity to escape before their captors visited them again. Kairi had taken up a post by the door, ready to knock out anyone who came through, and Alice had taken a place by the window, keeping an eye on the sun as it set while also watching for any patrols that ran below their window. So far Alice had only seen two leisurely card guards on patrol, and they hadn't come around very frequently, if at all.

"How much more sunlight do we have?", Kairi asked as she looked under the door jam to check for anyone. Alice looked towards the sun, but it had dipped behind one of the mountains surrounding the castle. "I would say about an hour. Perhaps less."

And so they waited, each minding their chosen posts, until the light faded altogether and Kairi heard a scratching noise at the corner of the door. She jumped slightly at the unexpected noise, then watched, stunned, as a small part of the door was carved away from the other side. The hole wasn't big, it was only about an inch wide and perhaps three tall, and attempting to squeeze through it was a grey mouse wearing a loose pink and white dress.

"Oy! Ya gonna help me?"

"Oh!" Kairi snapped out of her trance and helped pull the mouse through the opening.

"Thank ya, luv. Name's Mallymkun!", the small mouse looked back and forth between the two girls and the improvised rope by the window, "So… who's ready to escape?"

"Well, we had already had a plan in place.", Alice gestured to the rope next to the window.

"And how would you two girlies be gettin' through the bars on the window?"

In answer, Kairi summoned Destiny's Embrace and carved the window out of the wall, bars and all. "That's how." Her expression was smug, at least until the chunk of wall hit the ground. Unfortunately the resulting crash was loud enough to alert the guards to their escape. Mallymkun facepalmed while Alice tried to hold back a laugh. Kairi's smug look had since morphed into one of shock, then to a sheepish half grin.

"Ah, well I'll be wantin' to fire off the signal then."

That caught Kairi's attention. "Signal? What Signal?"

Mallymkun took two bottles off of her belt, one full of a clear fluid and the other held a small amount of blue gel. She poured the clear fluid into the bottle with the gel and gave the whole thing a good shake. As she shook it, the components mixed and turned a scarlet red color. That was when she threw the bottle out the window. The bottle exploded violently, shooting upward into the sky. Up it soared, past the highest towers of the castle, and there it exploded again in a massive conflagration that bathed the entire valley in a dull red glow.

" _That_ signal.", Mallymkun casually replied as she brushed her hands together and gathered up the rope. "Alright, loves! Down we get!", she chirped as she threw the motley rope out of the opening and tied it off to the heavy door handle.

There was only a moment of dubious hesitation before the two girls and the mouse had slid down the rope and were navigating through the gardens. Off in the distance they heard the sounds of people shouting and the clash of metal grinding and smashing against metal. As they rushed through the maze-like garden, several card soldiers ran by them, seeming to pay them no mind amidst the chaos. They took several pathways with Mallymkun leading the way until the garden ended and the town surrounding the castle began.

There, standing in front of a few bear looking creatures and a rather large bird, were a young boy and a crazed looking rabbit. Alice was going to ask for introductions to be made, but was cut off by the boy. "No time. We'll do all that later."

Then everything started moving fast. The boy had thrown another red explosive mixture high into the sky, then another louder explosion rocked the castle. They hadn't stayed around long enough to see the damage done, they were immediately sprinting down several streets until they reached a door that led down into the ground. The boy and the hare ushered them in and their entourage of bear creatures kept running.

"What about them?", Kairi asked, gesturing in the direction that their rescuers had gone.

"The bloody big head needs a trail to follow.", the boy replied in a tone that implied that the answer should have been obvious.

"What Hatter means, is that they're decoys." Mallymkun explained when it became apparent that the Hatter had no intentions of doing so. "We'll stay here 'til the others get here. Then we've got to move, loves."

Their wait didn't last long as Sora, Donald and Goofy had burst through the door soon after and threw it shut behind them. Kairi moved to greet them, but paused when she took in their appearance. Sora seemed slightly annoyed, his borrowed clothes were soot covered, torn to shreds and soaked with blood from wounds that seemed to no longer be there. Donald was giving his all to avoid looking at the other two, and he was much the same in dress; sooty, bloody and shredded. Goofy had a distressed look and was dressed in little more than singed rags that—just like the other two—were also caked in soot and blood. They looked like they had been put through the ringer.

Donald caught sight of her and his look of awkward guilt had morphed into an annoyed frown that matched Sora's, "So. Made any new friends? See da sights?"

"Uhh… well… I got captured and—"

"Yeah, we got that… ", Sora cut in, his voice carrying a hint of exasperation. Kairi looked down at the floor, her face burning. He heaved a sigh, "But, that's not really your fault… It's mine. Your official training to become a Keyblade Master begins the second we get back to the ship."

Kairi's face instantly lit up into a full blown smile, "Okay! I won't let you down!"

Sora narrowed his eyes and gave her a wicked smirk, causing her smile to falter, "You won't be so eager once we begin.", he replied cryptically. He then turned his attention to his ruined clothing… Okay, so it wasn't really clothing anymore. "Uh… Hatter?", The odd boy looked over in his direction. "Do you have any fabric in here that you don't care about?"

Hatter answered in the affirmative and led the four party members into one of the several side rooms where Sora immediately set to weaving the spells necessary to create new sets of clothes for Donald, Goofy, Kairi and himself. When he was all done, he handed out the new clothes.

"Put these on, _Donald_ and I'll work on enchanting them later." Sora leveled a glare in Donald's direction that said in no uncertain terms that the wizard would be helping weather he wanted to or not.

It took a few moments before they each gave each other some privacy to change, but soon enough they were all wearing their new clothes. Sora—though he hadn't meant to—had styled the clothes based on what they had worn while fighting the Organization. Looking over his friends now, he felt that he had done well. The clothes that he and Kairi were wearing when they left Traverse Town had not been that well suited to combat, and his borrowed clothes had been little better.

Sora looked over his comrades and nodded to himself; they were ready. "Alright. The hunting parties will have all gone after our decoys by now. Hatter, you said that you know someone who can help us get out of Underland?"

Alice and Kairi both gained looks of confusion. "Don't you mean Wonderland?", the blonde asked.

"We'll explain along the way… Hatter?"

"Yes, we shall go and speak to Absolem!" the mad hatter replied. Then he whispered conspiratorially, "He's the smartest bug I know… " Sora felt his eye twitch again before he corralled the group of misfits into the streets beyond.

Once out they stealthily ran through the streets, running from shadow to shadow while avoiding patrols. They had a few close calls, one of which involved bodily dragging Goofy back behind the corner of a wall just before a patrol passed by. When they finally broke free of the buildings, they instead used the dips in the land to hide themselves as much as possible for a few hours until they finally left the valley.

Their rate of travel picked up from there, only limited by their collective need to slow down every few miles or so to catch their breath and make sure they were going the right way. Only when the night was darkest and they felt that they had a big enough lead over any potential pursuers, did they stop in a sheltered clearing. Once Sora and Donald had placed several detection and alarm spells along the perimeter, they were all asleep on their claimed portions of ground in moments.

The next morning saw them waking with the sun, most of them having been too stressed to sleep any longer than that. They wasted no time as they began their trek anew, Hatter leading the way and the rest following behind with Sora bringing up the rear. As they walked along, Mallymkun tossed each of them strange looking pieces of fruit from the trees as they passed underneath them. Alice and Kairi kept themselves busy by taking turns reading from Jiminy's journal to get some much needed context on their situation. Neither of them liked what they were reading. By the time they were done, Kairi's brow was furrowed and Alice was trying to convince herself that she was simply dreaming.

In abject silence, they walked along for hours as the landscape slowly changed around them from towering mountains to rolling hills covered in dense forests. The change in scenery was welcome, but the strange additions to the scenery as they progressed deeper into the forest were less so.

Occasionally, they would pass by large toadstools that were the size of a small bush. Then they began passing by larger and larger trees, until they were surrounded by trees that were several dozen feet thick at the base and several hundred feet tall. The foliage and flowers, the leaves on the trees, the grass, all of it began to let off a strange luminescence that tinted the whole forest a mixture of purple and blue, and all of it grew progressively bigger with their surroundings.

Eventually, they came across a large clearing with a massive tree stump that was several dozen feet across and only three or so high. The center of the stump was hollowed out, leaving behind a perfectly round ring of tree that surrounded a hole which led down into the ground until the bottom faded into darkness. Rested on the rim of the stump was a small, blue caterpillar with an equally small hookah next to it.

"Absolem!", Hatter waved frantically, trying to get the bug's attention.

Absolem took the end of the pipe out of his mouth and addressed the Hatter in a low drawl, each word measured and precise, "Ahh, yes… The young hatter, formerly of Witzend." If the Hatter had felt anything about the insect mentioning his former home, he didn't show it. Absolem slowly and pointedly took another drag on the pipe, "And friends… " He exhaled a plume of greyish blue smoke as he breathed out the words, "To what do I owe this… pleasure?"

Sora took that as his cue, "We really need a way to get back to Alice's home.", he gestured to the blonde, "Can you help us?"

"Hmmm… ", the azure creature hummed in thought, "I can… But first, I believe you came here for… another matter?" He gestured over towards the edge of the clearing.

There, they laid eyes on a peculiar sight. A large grey tabby with light aqua stripes was floating around a Shadow, which was suspended in the air. In specific, the cat was playing with a blue ribbon that the Shadow was clutching, batting it this way and that. It batted at the ribbon a few more times before realizing that it had gained an audience. Snatching the ribbon, it floated over to them and presented its prize.

"My ribbon!", Alice cried.

"You!", Kairi shouted in recognition, a finder raised in condemnation.

"Yes, me.", the cat replied in a crisp tone and with a large toothy grin.

"You know this… cat?", Sora asked.

"He gave me this stuff that made me big again before I was taken to the castle by those cards and that man.", she explained in a matter-of-fact tone.

The feline chose then to comment, "Ah, the palace guard. What fun that must have been! So _sorry_ I missed it… "

Kairi gained a tick mark on her forehead and grit her teeth in annoyance, she was pretty sure that she could have knit a sweater with the sarcasm that was laced through that _apology_.

Absolem puffed another plume of smoke, "Cease your playing, Cheshire. Give them the ribbon."

Cheshire grinned sheepishly—embarrassed to be caught playing his games—and flicked his tail toward the ribbon, causing it to leave his paw and float over to Kairi. She touched the ribbon and the effect was instant. A pulse of light was released and above the natural Well in the middle of the clearing, a keyhole rimmed in light revealed itself. Kairi looked to Sora in question, but he waved her on, "You'll know what to do."

She nodded uncertainty and stepped forward. When she was close enough, Destiny's Embrace manifested in her hand and gifted her with instructions in the form of visions. She cast off her doubt and raised her keyblade into the sky toward the keyhole. A sphere of light materialized at the end of her keyblade briefly before disappearing and being replaced by a beam of light that shot into the keyhole.

 **Click.**

The now locked keyhole pulsed with light a few times, then faded away. Donald and Goofy gave a cheer and Sora gave Kairi a nod of approval. She had done well.

"Well done." Absolem congratulated the group. Then, as though he were reading his mind, he answered Sora's next question. "Your task is done…", he pointed his pipe over the edge of his perch, "to leave, simply fall into the well."

Sora nodded, "Thanks." Then he looked over towards Hatter, Thackery and Mallymkun, "And thanks to you guys too. We would've had a hard time of it by ourselves."

"Not a problem." Hatter replied. Then with a small smile, he continued a little more slowly, "and… my friends call me Terrant. My real name is Terrant Hightopp." He held out his hand and Sora shook it firmly.

"Nice ta meetcha, Terrant.", Sora said with a smile.

"Likewise, and farewell—until the frabjous day, that is!"

Everyone chuckled at that, they would see each other again. They all knew this wasn't over. When they had all said their farewells, the quartet plus Alice stood around the massive well, peering over the edge.

"Lets go!", Goofy was the first to jump in, Followed by Kairi and Alice. Donald jumped in when they disappeared and Sora was the last to go. He was immediately surrounded by darkness, unable to see anything around him. The only indication that he was still falling was the wind whipping by his body and the odd sense of weightlessness that came with falling. Then he touched the wall as it began curving off to the side. Eventually, he was just sliding along a stone surface until he broke out into daylight and promptly rolled across a familiar hilltop until he became part of the pile that was his friends.

Once they extricated themselves from each other, they made their way across the bridge to the gardens and back toward the door to the mansion. Sora noticed that the sun had barely moved in the sky while they were in Underland, but he figured that it must be a phenomenon involving naturally occuring magic on a massive scale. When they reached the door, it swung open to reveal a tall man with blond hair and tanned skin.

"Father!"

Alice rushed forward and embraced the man who was—evidently—her father and consequently Lord Kingsleigh. They shared a moment before he addressed the quartet before him. "So.", the word was clipped and his tone was curt, "The constabulary has moved from employing an assortment of drunks to employing children that have barely come of age… and with no accompanying official. Is this all my daughter's safety is worth?"

Kairi shied away from the seemingly angry man. Donald crossed his arms while Goofy waved his hands in front of himself in denial. It was Sora who spoke up first as he took a step forward. "We never said we were with the authorities, but we believed we could help where they couldn't."

The irate lord narrowed his eyes for a moment more before the look melted away completely, replaced by a smile. His smile was bright and strong as he let loose a booming laugh, which caught the group off guard.

"It seems you were right. You all have my thanks!", the lord gestured for them to follow into the building, "Please, the least I can do is offer you all some food and a place to stay for the night."

They each thanked the man as he led the into the dining hall, Alice never straying from his side. Once seated they were treated to a large feast, spanning several courses, replete with all kinds of exotic foods and drinks. Most of which they had never seen or even heard of. Once they were filled to bursting, lord Kingsleigh personally showed them to the guest sweets and bid them good night.

The next morning saw the party well rested and ready to be on their way. They were at the gates, Alice and her father were there to see them off, and they were ready to get back to their ship.

"Thank you again for finding my dear little Alice. Please, if you all ever need anything just ask. You will always find yourselves welcome in this home.", lord Kingsleigh said with a bright smile.

Sora chuckled, "We may just take you up on that offer, that was the best sleep I've had in awhile—oof!" Kairi elbowed him in the stomach and glared at him, "Any sleep you miss out on is strictly _your fault_."

Sora grinned sheepishly as he rubbed his aching stomach, "True."

"Anyway, It was good to meet you two.", Kairi said with an easy smile as she bowed her head slightly. Sora, Donald and Goofy followed suit and they were bid farewell by Alice.

"Thank you all for rescuing me," she smiled at each of them in turn, "I hope we see each other again soon, I'll miss you all."

"Don't worry. We'll be sure to visit.", Sora reassured the blonde.

"Yeah! And we'll tell ya all about our adventures!", Goofy added as he struck a heroic pose—or an approximation of one.

They all shared a chuckle at his antics. Then, all too soon in some opinions, they were walking through the gate and back to their ship while waving to the father and daughter until they were out of view. From there, the walk to the ship only took them an hour or so. Much better than when they had first arrived, in Sora's opinion. They didn't even need the mana trace that he had put on the ship to find it. They had also been encountering other people on the road until they turned off of it and into the forest. It was almost like the world had unpaused now that the trouble had passed.

Once they had all boarded the ship, Donald took the pilot seat and did the preflight checks. Sora barely noticed as he waited your the eventual announcement from Donald, "Buckle up, we're takin' off." Then the ship began to rise smoothly into the air.

"We'll be back.", he heard Kairi say softly as they watched the world shrink away. Sora looked over toward the navigation panel and saw that the location of the world was saved in their database. "Definitely."

"Whenever that 'Frabjous' day thingie is supposed ta be, Terrant thought we would be part of it.", Goofy chimed in.

"Hopefully it's not too soon… " Donald muttered, remembering the crazed forest, the army of cards, the dragon and his mistake at the gates of the castle.

"Well, it'll be soon enough. Alice is one of the princesses of light." Sora informed them. They were all quiet for a moment, each looking confused. Sora sighed and explained that there were seven princesses of light and that no, he wouldn't tell them who the others are until they met them.

Donald burst first. "If ya knew that, then why didja leave Alice there? She coulda came with us!"

Sora rubbed his face with both hands. He didn't mind full disclosure—he really didn't—but this was becoming a pain in the ass to explain things as they came up. "Look. If I can speak frankly, we aren't ready to fight against—we need to be stronger. Myself included. Like I said before, this is basically an extended training trip right now."

Donald clammed up at that. He had been the kings court wizard for _years_ and he still wasn't strong enough? Goofy took the news a little better, as he had already been smacked around by some of the Heartless and other enemies that they have come across.

"Look, once we're all up to snuff, I'll tell you everything about what's happening with the princesses, Kingdom Hearts, Riku… everything." Sora looked to each of them in turn until they nodded or otherwise signaled their understanding.

Donald turned back to navigation to pick a new destination. "There's a few places nearby that we can go.", he looked around, "any preference?"

Sora shook his head, "Nope, just pick one. The rest'll sort itself out." Goofy and Kairi looked at world map briefly before shrugging. They really had no preference either. Donald grunted and charted a course for a nearby world that seemed to have a city with a colosseum and a mountain sprouting out of it while the others descended the stairs.

"We'll be there in an hour!", he called over his shoulder to their retreating forms.

Sora lifted an arm in acknowledgement, then corralled Kairi towards the training room as she grumbled about being tired.

"Come on. The enemy won't care if you're tired."

She glared in his direction then asked, "What are you going to teach me?"

"Everything.", he glanced at her over his shoulder, "We'll start with sword work."

They stopped in the center of the training room and summoned their respective keyblades. The Kingdom Key for Sora and Destiny's Embrace for Kairi. Then he led her through the basic sword forms that he had learned from Leon and Cloud a lifetime ago. Once they had gone through them twice together, he stopped and began calling out corrections to her forms as she moved through the stances alone.

"Bend your knees!"

"shift your back foot to the left!"

"Watch the angle of your blade!"

On and on it went, until the ship suddenly lurched to the side and they were thrown against the wall. Neither one of them had time to question what was happening before the ship was shaking violently and throwing them around the room. They eventually managed to get out of the room and make their way to the bridge, just in time for another explosion rock the ship and several Heartless pepper their hull with laser fire.

Sora clung to the back of one of the seats on the bridge, from what he could see—if the carnage surrounding their ship was anything to go by—Donald had dished out much more damage than they had received. The other thing that was readily apparent was that they weren't alone with the armada. There was what looked like a giant metal pirate ship that was tearing through the Heartless like tissue paper. That, however, was simply not enough against the armada of free floating Heartless.

Then they were hit with another volley of explosions. Everyone on the bridge was thrown about until they lost consciousness. The last thing that Sora saw was a very large and very advanced looking pirate ship firing energy blasts at anything that moved.

 _Who does that ship belong to?_


End file.
